Journal ArticleDOI
Preservation or piracy: Diagnosing low-relief, high-elevation surface formation mechanisms
TLDR
In this article, a set of morphometric criteria were developed to distinguish the alternative mechanisms of low-relief upland formation from the assumption of a static drainage network topology.Abstract:
Absent clear lithologic control, the presence of elevated, low-relief topography in upland landscapes has traditionally been interpreted as a signature of relative surface uplift and incision of a paleo-landscape. Such interpretations are commonly supported and quantified using analyses of river longitudinal profiles under the assumption of a static drainage network topology. Drainage networks, however, are not static, and it has been proposed recently that divide migration and drainage capture can lead to the generation of low-relief upland topography that mimics that of incised paleo-landscapes and that might be falsely interpreted as recording surface uplift and/or the onset of accelerated incision. Indeed, the interpretation of the incised southeastern Tibetan Plateau, and thus the associated geodynamic implications, have been called into question. Here we use theory and one- and two-dimensional landscape evolution models to develop a set of morphometric criteria to distinguish these alternative mechanisms of low-relief upland formation. Application to the southeastern Tibetan Plateau illustrates the utility of these metrics and demonstrates that the topography is in no way consistent with the drainage network dynamics mechanism and is fully consistent with incision into an elevated, preexisting low-relief landscape.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Timescales of landscape response to divide migration and drainage capture: Implications for the role of divide mobility in landscape evolution
TL;DR: In this article, a non-dimensional divide migration number, NDm, is defined as the ratio of the timescale of channel profile response to a change in drainage area (TdA) to the timescales of divide migration (TDm).
Journal ArticleDOI
Criteria and Tools for Determining Drainage Divide Stability
Adam M. Forte,Kelin X. Whipple +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use a series of landscape evolution simulations in which they induce divide mobility under different conditions to test the utility of a suite of topographic metrics of divide mobility and for comparison with natural examples in the eastern Greater Caucasus Mountains, the Kars Volcanic Plateau and the western San Bernadino Mountains.
Journal ArticleDOI
Rapid incision of the Mekong River in the middle Miocene linked to monsoonal precipitation
Junsheng Nie,Gregory Ruetenik,Kerry Gallagher,Gregory D. Hoke,Carmala N. Garzione,Weitao Wang,Daniel F. Stockli,Xiaofei Hu,Zhao Wang,Ying Wang,Thomas Stevens,Martin Danišík,Shanpin Liu +12 more
TL;DR: In this article, low-temperature thermochronology data from river bedrock samples reveal a phase of rapid downward incision (>700m) of the Mekong River during the middle Miocene about 17 million years ago, long after the uplift of the central and southeastern Tibetan Plateau.
Journal ArticleDOI
The changing course of the Amazon River in the Neogene: center stage for Neotropical diversification
TL;DR: The origins of the modern Amazon River are hypothesized to be linked with that of mega-wetland landscapes of tropical South America, which have persisted over about 10% northern South America under different configurations for >15 million years.
Journal ArticleDOI
Geometric disequilibrium of river basins produces long-lived transient landscapes
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that an ancient postorogenic dome on the North American Craton, the Ozark dome, is not in a state of equilibrium, characterized by nonuniform erosion rates that vary by a factor of three, asymmetric drainage divides, and evidence for drainage rearrangement via stream capture.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
A detachment-limited model of drainage basin evolution
TL;DR: In this article, a drainage basin simulation model incorporating creep and threshold slumping and both detachment-and transport-limited fluvial processes is introduced, and it is argued that fluvial erosion of natural slopes and headwater channels is dominantly detachment-limited.
Book ChapterDOI
Tectonics from topography: Procedures, promise, and pitfalls
Cameron Wobus,Kelin X. Whipple,Eric Kirby,Noah P. Snyder,Joel P. L. Johnson,Katerina Spyropolou,Benjamin T. Crosby,Daniel Sheehan +7 more
TL;DR: In this article, a method for extracting topographic indices of longitudinal profi le shape and character from digital topographic data is described, which can then be used to delineate breaks in scaling that may be associated with tectonic boundaries.
Journal ArticleDOI
Surface uplift, uplift of rocks, and exhumation of rocks
Philip England,Peter Molnar +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the rates of surface uplift of mountain ranges have been quantified sufficiently well that they provide useful constraints on those processes and provide information on the dynamics of the mountain ranges.
Journal ArticleDOI
Expression of active tectonics in erosional landscapes
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide an overview of the analysis and interpretation of channel profiles in erosional mountain ranges and show that existing data support theoretical expectations of positive, monotonic relationships between channel steepness index, a measure of channel gradient normalized for downstream increases in drainage area, and erosion rate at equilibrium, and that the transient response to perturbations away from equilibrium engenders specific spatial patterns in channel profiles that can be used to infer the forcing.
Book ChapterDOI
The Geographical Cycle
TL;DR: Time is the most frequent application and of a most practical value in geographical description as mentioned in this paper, and is, of all the three variables, the one of the most frequently used in geographical descriptions.