causes of recent himalayan uplift deduced from deposited patterns in the ganges basin the hypothesis1 that late cenozoic uplift of many of the world s mountain ranges was a response to climate change rather than to tectonic processes is based on the premise that enhanced erosion in an altered climate led to a reduction in both the total mass of a mountain range and its mean elevation this reduction was coeval with increased regional relief and with passive isostatic uplift of the remaining summits the hypothesis is difficult to evaluate because both climate and tectonic forces affect uplift in many active ranges in the absence of sufficient denudational and uplift data from the mountains themselves depositional patterns in adjacent basins may sometimes be used to distinguish between uplift arising from erosional or from tectonic processes in foreland basins uplift of the proximal basin and a reduction or absence of asymmetric subsidence are predicted responses to erosionally driven uplift2 here i show that patterns of sediment accumulation and the position of major rivers in the neogene gangetic foreland basin seem to have changed markedly in plio pleistocene times these changes lend support to the hypothesis that the importance of erosional unloading has increased in the himalayas during the past 4 myr

chronology of pleistocene glacial advances in the central rocky mountains the distribution and ages of moraines in the wyoming type localities for pre pinedale rocky mountain glacial deposits are not well known through morphostratigraphic mapping river terrace longitudinal profile analysis and tephrochronology we place the age of sacagawea ridge moraines in the dinwoody lakes type area at about 660 ka outwash and river terrace deposits in the bull lake type area previously considered to be sacagawea ridge are actually older by one or two glacial cycles in the bull lake type locality 15 individual moraines are divided into 4 groups on the basis of relative age criteria using 36cl 10be cosmogenic dating of boulders the two older groups must be 130 ka the younger groups are given age ranges of 130 to 100 ka and 120 to 95 ka a terrace along wind river can be morphostratigraphically traced to the youngest of these moraine groups 36cl dating of boulders on the terrace provides an age range of 125 to 100 ka the combined relative age and cosmogenic nuclide chronology is consistent with previously published evidence from yellowstone national park demonstrating that mountain glaciers advanced not only prior to and during the later portion of marine isotope stage 6 but also during marine isotope stage 5d in contrast with some other areas of the rocky mountains we found no evidence for advances during marine isotope stage 4 at bull lake pinedale moraines that have a 36cl 10be age range of 23 to 16 ka suggest that glacial advances were limited to the later part of marine isotope stage 2 a river terrace that can be traced to these moraines has an age range of 23 to 16 ka a possible glacial advance during early marine isotope stage 2 is indicated by a river terrace whose age range is estimated by incision rate modeling at 46 to 28 ka but no moraines were identified along wind river there are eight terrace levels capped with outwash that are older than sacagawea ridge although the terraces are the record of early to middle pleistocene climatic cycles there are no correlative moraines preserved at the land surface

resolving time space histories of late cenozoic bedrock incision along the upper colorado river usa abstract the upper colorado river basin drains the western slope of the rocky mountains province of north america and hosts a rich record of fluvial terraces and volcanic deposits that provide an archive of bedrock river incision since the late miocene here we present new geochronology from fluvial deposits and associated volcanic units using multiple methods luminescence cosmogenic burial 40ar 39ar basalt and detrital sanidine and u pb detrital zircon to reconstruct a detailed record of bedrock incision in the upper colorado river over timescales ranging from miocene to late pleistocene late miocene ca 11 8 ma basalt flows perched 800 1700 m above the colorado river and the oldest known ancestral colorado river deposits preserved beneath basalt flows on grand mesa provide the basis for average long term 107 yr incision rates rates range from 110 160 m ma between grand junction downstream and glenwood canyon upstream with rates decreasing upvalley intermediate scale 105 106 yr incision rates are 200 320 m m y over the past 1 3 ma and these rates are faster than the average over the past 8 11 ma short term

microstructures and rheology of hydrous synthetic magmatic suspensions deformed in torsion at high pressure the relationship between magma rheology and characteristic magmatic microstructures was investigated by performing high temperature high pressure deformation experiments on hydrous synthetic magmatic suspensions in the range of 0 to 76 solid fraction alumina grains torsion experiments were conducted at 300 mpa confining pressure temperatures ranging from 475 c to 1000 c and shear strain rates ranging from 2 0 10 5 to 2 1 10 3 s 1 up to total strains of 21 3 flow is newtonian for a solid fraction of s 0 0 0 16 with a log dynamic viscosity 10 3 pa s t 500 c a deviation from newtonian behavior is observed for s 0 16 with an increase in apparent viscosity of about 1 order of magnitude between s 0 16 and 0 54 the shape fabric of the solid phase is characterized by a unimodal orientation that is almost stable and nearly parallel to the shear direction both shape fabric and deviation from newtonian behavior originate from the increase in the number of particle clusters in the suspension the apparent viscosity increases by 1 5 orders of magnitude between s 0 54 and 0 65 and extrapolation of the data suggests a very sharp increase in apparent viscosity for s 0 65 at t 550 c and s 0 54 the solid phase forms an almost entirely connected network composed of two alternating orientation domains at t 550 c and s 0 65 intragranular fracturing and tensile fractures result from high local stresses at contact points between neighboring particles the resulting bulk extensional fabric is almost parallel to the shortening direction

rapid incision of the colorado river in glen canyon insights from channel profiles local incision rates and modeling of lithologic controls the colorado river system in southern utah and northern arizona is continuing to adjust to the baselevel fall responsible for the carving of the grand canyon estimates of bedrock incision rates in this area vary widely hinting at the transient state of the colorado and its tributaries in conjunction with these data we use longitudinal profiles of the colorado and tributaries between marble canyon and cataract canyon to investigate the incision history of the colorado in this region we find that almost all of the tributaries in this region steepen as they enter the colorado river the consistent presence of oversteepened reaches with similar elevation drops in the lower section of these channels and their coincidence within a corridor of high local relief along the colorado suggest that the tributaries are steepening in response to an episode of increased incision rate on the mainstem this analysis makes testable predictions about spatial variations in incision rates these predictions are consistent with existing rate estimates and can be used to guide further studies we also present cosmogenic nuclide data from the henry mountains of southern utah we measured in situ10be concentrations on four gravel covered strath surfaces elevated from 1 m to 110 m above trachyte creek the surfaces yield exposure ages that range from approximately 2 5 ka to 267 ka and suggest incision rates that vary between 350 and 600 m my these incision rates are similar to other rates determined within the high relief corridor available data thus support the interpretation that tributaries of the colorado river upstream of the grand canyon are responding to a recent pulse of rapid incision on the colorado numerical modeling of detachment limited bedrock incision suggests that this incision pulse is likely related to the upstream dipping lithologic boundary at the northern edge of the kaibab upwarp copyright 2009 john wiley sons ltd

rock strength along a fluvial transect of the colorado plateau quantifying a fundamental control on geomorphology a b s t r a c t bedrock strength is a key parameter that influences slope stability landscape erosion and fluvial incision yet it is often ignored or indirectly constrained in studies of landscape evolution as with the k erodibility parameter in stream power models empirical datasets of rock strength suited to address geomorphic questions are rare in part because of the difficulty in measuring those rocks at earth s surface that are heterolithic weak or poorly exposed here we present a large dataset of measured bedrock strength organized by rock units exposed along the length of the trunk green colorado river through the iconic colorado plateau of the western u s measurements include field compressive tests fracture spacing and selby rock mass strength at 168 localities as well as 672 individual tensile strength tests in the laboratory tensile strength results are compared to geomorphic metrics of unit stream power river gradient and channel and valley bottom width through the arid colorado plateau where the influence of bedrock is intuitive but unquantified our dataset reveals logical trends between tensile and compressive strength as well as between strength rock type and age in bedrock reaches of the fluvial transect there is a positive rank correlation and a strong power law correlation between reach averaged rock strength and unit stream power as well as a linear relation between tensile strength and river gradient expected relations between fracture spacing and topography are masked partly by the massive yet weak sandstones in the dataset to constrain values for weak rock types such as shale we utilize the inverse power law scaling between tensile strength and valley bottom width to estimate their effective tensile strength results suggest that tensile strength varies to at least an order of magnitude smaller values than evident with directly testable rocks in this landscape and values for erodibility k in numerical simulations may be informed by this dataset in terms of landscape evolution these results support the finding that equilibrium adjustment to bedrock strength not differential uplift or transient incision is the first order control on large scale fluvial geomorphology in the colorado plateau this has broad implications for the interpretation of topography in terms of tectonic drivers

cosmogenic burial ages reveal sediment reservoir dynamics along the yellow river china burial dating using cosmogenic al 26 and be 10 is an emerging technique for establishing chronologies of fluvial deposits ranging in age from ca 0 5 ma to 5 ma the determination of burial age however requires an assumption that sediment is buried with a known initial al 26 be 10 ratio using a sequence of well dated fluvial terraces along the yellow river in lanzhou china we demonstrate that this assumption may be violated when upstream sediment sources include neogene sedimentary basins samples of fluvial gravel from six terraces yield burial ages ranging from ca 0 83 ma to 2 81 ma comparison of these results to independent ages determined from magneto stratigraphic and loess paleosol studies demonstrates a high degree of correspondence between ages in the lower three terraces in the higher terraces however burial ages are systematically too old implying a previous burial history these results can be exploited to place quantitative constraints on the provenance of sediment in the terrace deposits our results reveal that rapid incision and excavation of late neogene sedimentary basins ca 1 7 ma led to injection of fluvial sediment with low initial al 26 be 10 ratios dilution of this source through time occurred as incision progressed into upstream bedrock ranges our results suggest that cosmogenic nuclides can illuminate the timing of long term storage and remobilization of sediment in continental scale river systems

postdepositional tilt of the miocene pliocene ogallala group on the western great plains evidence of late cenozoic uplift of the rocky mountains the rocky mountains and adjacent western great plains share a common history of late cenozoic stream incision both epeirogenic uplift and climate change with no associated uplift have been proposed as the cause of thissubcontinental scale erosional episode however the lack of a well defined cenozoic paleoelevation history for the region has hampered our ability to distinguish between the two a tilt analysis of the cheyenne tablelands in the western great plains of wyoming and nebraska provides us with a datum from which postdepositional changes in slope can be determined miocene to earliest pliocene gravels of the ogallala group 17 5 5 ma cap the tablelands which currently tilt down to the east at slopes as great as 10 2 however paleohydraulic analysis of the ogallala gravels indicates depositional slopes of 10 3 to 10 4 implying a postdepositional increase in tilt if a hinge point at the eastern edge of the cheyenne tablelands is assumed this tilt translates into differential uplift of 680 m 815 410 m at the western edge of the great plains flexural isostatic rebound of the tablelands due to known young erosion in surrounding basins only produces a few hundred meters of uplift therefore even if all of the recent erosion in the region can be attributed to climate change the resulting rebound is insufficient to account for the observed uplift of the tablelands thus the tilting of the cheyenne tablelands is most consistent with broad wavelength tectonic uplift centered under the rocky mountains initiated during ogallala deposition and continuing since deposition ceased

fluvial terrace formation along wyoming s laramie range as a response to increased late pleistocene flood magnitudes abstract this study evaluates the potential climatic mechanisms involved in fluvial terrace genesis along wyoming s laramie range we used optical dating methods to determine depositional ages for fluvial fills and to calculate incision rates for terrace suites along two of the region s larger rivers optical ages were determined for the five lowest terrace levels t5 t1 which were deposited at 59 6 39 2 26 3 22 7 and 18 5 ka and incision rates calculated for the two rivers were 0 29 0 34 m kyr over the last 60 kyr the formation of fluvial terraces in the central rocky mountains is commonly attributed to climatically induced changes in sediment input according to most studies relatively low incision rates existed during the colder periods of the pleistocene due to high stream sediment loads but terraces were formed during warmer interglacial periods when reduced sediment availability facilitated higher incision rates however this conceptual model cannot explain the incision records presented here which show that the streams incised 9 10 m in two to three events during oxygen isotope stage 2 but only 1 2 m during the warmer climates of the last 18 5 ka the stream power model we adapted to this setting suggests that late quaternary streams operated under two basic states during the colder conditions of the pleistocene higher flood magnitudes resulted in higher lateral erosion and incision rates however the lower stream discharge common to the warmer interglacial periods resulted in relatively inactive streams when both lateral erosion and incision rates were lowered this model can explain the high incision rates during the cold conditions of oxygen isotope stage 2 the occurrence of terrace fill ages near cold to warm transitions and the apparent acceleration in incision rates toward the end of the last glacial cycle finally this study suggests that terrace fill ages and incision rates are similar for the distally glaciated laramie river nonglaciated sybille creek and the proximally glaciated streams that drain the wind river range this implies that rivers responded synchronously to late quaternary climate changes regardless of their influence by alpine glaciation

recent human impacts on the morphological evolution of the yangtze river delta foreland a review and new perspectives abstract this paper reviews the morphological change in the yangtze river delta due to increasing human impacts from three major aspects the first is the reduction of sediment supply to the ocean due to dam construction soil conservation and sand mining within the yangtze river basin the reduced sediment supply has decreased the progradation rate of the delta and triggered erosion in the front of the delta the second impact relates to the reclamation of intertidal wetlands by human activities since the 1950s approximately 1100 km 2 of intertidal land has been embanked resulting in the disappearance of salt marshes and even the entire intertidal zone along some sections of the coastline the third change in the delta due to human interference is the construction of deep waterway structures at the mouth bar which has greatly modified the local hydrodynamics and morphology sediment accretion has increased significantly in these areas as a result of sheltering by these deep waterway structures this review shows that human activities have severely altered the natural balance among the hydrodynamics and sediment supply affecting the morphological features of the yangtze river watershed and delta human impacts on the morphological evolution of deltaic coasts in general are becoming an increasingly concern and more attention should be paid to the management and mitigation of these effects

complex subduction and small scale convection revealed by body wave tomography of the western united states upper mantle abstract new high resolution p and s wave tomography of the united states upper mantle from the pacific coast to the great plains reveals strong multi scale heterogeneity closely correlated with tectonic and magmatic activity we invert teleseismic travel time residuals from the earthscope transportable array and more than 1700 additional temporary and permanent stations for 3 d velocity perturbations to a depth of 1000 km the inversion uses recent advances in western u s crust models to better isolate the mantle component of travel time residuals and frequency dependent 3 d sensitivity kernels to map travel time residuals measured in multiple frequency bands into velocity structure in addition to separate v p and v s models we jointly invert the two datasets for v p v s perturbations by imposing a smoothness constraint on the ln v s ln v p field the joint inversion helps us identify regions where partial melt is probable the amplitude of v p v s and v p v s variations is greatest in the upper 200 km of the mantle and the form of velocity anomalies suggests a provincially heterogeneous lithosphere and the occurrence of widespread small scale convection partially molten mantle is inferred beneath yellowstone and the eastern snake river plain srp the salton trough and the clear lake volcanic field the inferred depth extent of partial melt is consistent with a generally hydrated upper mantle and elevated temperatures beneath the eastern srp and yellowstone despite continuous subduction since the cretaceous the distribution of sub lithospheric high velocity anomalies is dissected similar to other recent studies based on our new tomography models western u s geologic history and plate tectonic reconstructions we infer patchy and incomplete removal of the flat subducting laramide slab and slab tearing associated with eocene accretion in the northwestern u s

dating of erosion surface and terraces in the eastern qilian shan northwest china the actively deformed foreland of eastern qilian shan mountains contains well preserved geomorphic features such as erosion surfaces river terraces and tectonically uplifted alluvial fans providing suitable archives for research on regional tectonic activities and palaeoclimatic changes these geomorphic surfaces are well dated by using a combination of magnetostratigraphy electron spin resonance thermoluminescence infra red stimulated luminescence radiocarbon dating and correlation with the well established loess palaeosol sequences of china our results show that the erosion surface formed about 1 4 ma ago and the age of river terraces is 1 24 ma 820 860 ka 780 ka 420 440 ka 230 250 ka 140 ka 60 ka and 10 ka respectively valley incision rates of e 0 09 0 25 m ka 1 have been identified the repetitive stratigraphic and geomorphic pattern of these terraces indicates the fluvial sedimentation incision cycles are tightly associated with the 100 ka glacial interglacial climatic cycles copyright c 2006 john wiley sons ltd

climatic influences on profile concavity and river incision 1 longitudinal profiles of alluvial and bedrock rivers are typically concave up and the precise shape of their concavity is known to integrate tectonic climatic and channel grain size distribution factors we isolate climatic hydrologic effects on profile concavity through a spatial analysis of large watersheds with mixed bedrock alluvial trunk channels spanning a steep climatic hydrologic gradient in a tectonically stable landscape forty watersheds on the eastern american high plains were selected to minimize variability in base level relief vegetation rock type and drainage area we calculate stream concavity by two complementary methods an area normalized stream concavity index sci and the slope of a line regressed through log log plot of channel slope and basin area the sci and covary more importantly a positive correlation exists between profile concavity and climatic hydrologic factors such as precipitation intensity and peak annual discharge however modeled profile steepness has no correlation to climate or watershed hydrology we conclude that in tectonically stable settings higher intensity rainfall and greater mean annual precipitation lead to more concave profiles we do not have data to know if the concavity changes reflect primarily bedrock or alluvial grain size processes but generally a doubling of rainfall intensity on the high plains leads to a tripling in concavity manifest as tens of meters of incision such climatically influenced profile concavity could explain some of the often cited late cenozoic incision and increase in local relief for the high plains and rocky mountains traditionally ascribed to tectonics

flow in the lower continental crust as a mechanism for the quaternary uplift of south east england constraints from the thames terrace record abstract the sequence of terraces of the river thames in south east england has been shown to date from the early pleistocene onwards and to provide an indication of the quaternary uplift history of the region using this evidence supplemented by altitudes of pliocene and early pleistocene marine sediments we have determined the pliocene and quaternary uplift histories of five representative localities clacton colchester and dartford for the lower thames and cookham and reading for the middle thames these uplift histories have been modelled using a physics based technique which calculates the isostatic response involving flow in the lower continental crust induced by cyclic loading at the earth s surface our results suggest that the late pliocene and early pleistocene part of the uplift history of our study region was initiated following the deterioration in climate starting at 3 1 ma which marked the start of upland glaciation elsewhere in europe the later increase in uplift rates in the middle pleistocene followed the start of intensified cyclic loading by very large continental ice sheets during and after oxygen isotope stage ois 22 at 0 87 ma dartford cookham and reading in the interior of south east england are all shown to have begun to uplift quite rapidly at rates of up to 0 1 mm a 1 following the start of forcing at 3 1 ma they have since uplifted by distances which increase gradually westward from 200 to 250 m of which a uniform 70 m has occurred since ois 22 at 0 87 ma in contrast clacton and colchester near the present north sea coastline experienced slow subsidence until the late early pleistocene but have nonetheless uplifted since ois 22 by similar distances to the other sites

volcanic hazards in auckland new zealand a preliminary assessment of the threat posed by central north island silicic volcanism based on the quaternary tephrostratigraphical record

a signature of transience in bedrock river incision rates over timescales of 10 4 10 7 years measured rates of river incision into bedrock are commonly interpreted as proxies for rates of rock uplift see refs 1 and 2 for example and indices of the strength of climatic forcing of erosion over time see refs 3 and 4 for example this approach implicitly assumes that river incision rates are in equilibrium with external forcings over a wide range of timescales here we directly test this assumption by examining the temporal scaling of bedrock river incision from 155 independent measurements of river incision compiled from 14 sites of these sites 11 exhibit a negative power law dependence of bedrock river incision rate on measurement interval a relationship that is apparent over timescales of 10 4 10 7 years and is independent of tectonic and geomorphic setting thus like rates of sediment accumulation rates of river incision into bedrock exhibit non steady state behaviour even over very long measurement intervals non steady state behaviour can be explained by episodic hiatuses in river incision triggered by alluvial deposition if such hiatuses have a heavy tailed length distribution regardless of its cause the dependence of incision rate on measurement interval complicates efforts to infer tectonic or climatic forcing from changes in rates of river incision over time or from comparison of rates computed over different timescales

pleistocene incision rates in the western united states calibrated using lava creek b tephra the lava creek b ash bed erupted from the yellowstone caldera ca 0 64 ma provides a datum for measuring long term fluvial incision west of the mississippi river the ash is widely preserved due to its substantial volume broad initial dispersal and the aggrading environment into which the ash fell drainages incised soon after lava creek b deposition isolating the ash from fluvial erosion and preserving it in fill terraces calculated rates of incision since ca 0 60 ma range from 2 to 30 cm k y 1 rates are high in most areas near the rocky mountains and downstream along rivers draining mountainous terrain and are lowest east of the high plains and along the snake river incision rates along many rivers decrease downstream rates of downcutting increased in the late pleistocene along several major rivers indicating that climate change altered sediment budgets regional and temporal data suggest that fluvial incision records increased middle and late pleistocene runoff from the southern rocky mountains rather than epeirogenic uplift but regional rock uplift cannot be excluded as a significant factor

impact of rock uplift on rates of late cenozoic rocky mountain river incision 1 the high relief of the modern rocky mountain landscape formed in the late cenozoic by downcutting of a fluvial network that links a series of easily eroded sedimentary basins across relatively resistant crystalline cores of adjacent ranges using a numerical model of fluvial erosion and the flexural isostatic response to the associated unloading we first calculate the expected pattern and pace of incision caused by rock uplift related to migration of the yellowstone hot spot and to growth of the northern portion of the rio grande rift calculated incision rates are 60 m myr and total depth of erosion of sedimentary basins is 300 m well below the long term incision rates and amounts of erosion interpreted from the geologic record broad scale tilting of the region toward the east accomplished by a gradient in rock uplift of 1 km along the north south axis of the central rockies declining to zero 1000 km to the east can account for the additional erosion needed to match observations in each modeling scenario stream incision is nonsteady with rock uplift outpacing erosion for 1 myr in perimeter basins and 1 5 myr in interior basins three factors dominate the spatial and temporal pattern of regional landscape evolution 1 the time since uplift began 2 the uplift pattern and 3 the distribution of relatively resistant bedrock within the region our results suggest that the spatial variability in late cenozoic exhumation can be explained by a long lived transience in the stream network response to these various late cenozoic geophysical events

the somme valley terrace system northern france a model of river response to quaternary climatic variations since 800 000 bp recent research on the somme valley terrace deposits that began in 1987 has resulted in an integrated sequence of geological and geomorphological evidence for this area that is of particular significance for prehistoric investigations this has been achieved using previous evidence and new results from archaeological and geological excavations these include longitudinal profiles cartography and detailed synthesis of sections of alluvial deposits stratigraphy of river deposits and overlying loess sequences the work based on a study of the geometry of the terrace system has resulted in the identification of ninestepped alluvial formations that occur along 70 km of the valley detailed study permits the integration of the various alluvial sequences this suggests that each alluvial sequence results from sedimentation through a single glacial interglacial climatic cycle this hypothesis is confirmed by investigation of soil and loess sequences of the deposits overlying the fluvial sediments the synthesis presented provides a basis for understanding the deposition of the terrace system and an initial chronostratigraphic interpretation for the deposits

late cenozoic regional uplift and localised crustal deformation within the northern arabian platform in southeast turkey investigation of the euphrates terrace staircase using multidisciplinary techniques we present the results of detailed field investigations of the fluvial succession exposed along the euphrates valley adjoining the ataturk dam in the northern part of the arabian platform within se turkey this work which has used differential gps surveying to obtain accurate heights of deposits and shuttle radar topographic mission imagery for location purposes has included documentation of many fresh sections exposed by quarrying the work has been supplemented by unspiked kar dating of late middle miocene to late miocene basalt flows which are widespread in the region providing a chronology for the early stages of development of this river system following regional emergence above sea level in the early middle miocene for example beside the ataturk dam lake at siverek iskelesi basalt dated to 10 24 0 22 ma 2 caps a polymict euphrates gravel some 80 m above the modern river this is the oldest euphrates terrace currently recognised however amounts and rates of fluvial incision are shown to vary across the northern arabian platform in a complex manner due to the interaction between regional uplift and localised vertical crustal motions caused by slip on active reverse faults beneath anticlines the study reach downstream of the ataturk dam includes the footwall of one such fault beneath the bozova anticline we estimate that the resulting rate of localised subsidence superimposed onto the regional uplift that has also been occurring has been 0 01 mm a 1 during the present phase of crustal deformation which began at 3 7 3 6 ma but was higher maybe 0 03 mm a 1 during the previous phase which began at 6 ma when the pattern of plate motions in the surrounding region was different a large palaeo lake centred north of the present study region around the city of adiyaman is inferred to have existed during this 6 ma to 3 7 3 6 ma phase of plate motion apparently because the relatively rapid localised hanging wall uplift on the northern flank of the bozova anticline dammed the euphrates valley near the site of the modern ataturk dam the uppermost part of a thick fluvial aggradation west of the euphrates near karababa bridge inferred to date from around the mid pliocene reaches 100 m above the modern river and after correction for an estimated 30 m of localised subsidence and by 50 m for subsequent downstream lengthening of the euphrates channel indicates 180 m of subsequent regional uplift the euphrates then incised to within 20 m of its present level by the mid early pleistocene then a switch to regional subsidence accompanied the deposition of a second thick fluvial aggradation the top of which is 70 m above the modern river subsequent renewed regional uplift following the mid pleistocene revolution has resulted in the development of a succession of fluvial terraces typically inset into these older aggradations which are correlated with the cold stages of milankovitch climate cycles the early part of the euphrates chronology constrained mainly by the disposition of basalt flows indicates 800 m of regional uplift since the early middle miocene of which an estimated 330 m is masked by the subsequent downstream lengthening of the river components of localised uplift and subsidence caused by slip on reverse faults beneath anticlines are superimposed onto this regional pattern the hanging wall uplift being much larger in one case roughly five times larger than the footwall subsidence our results provide for the first time detailed documentation of the complex development of the euphrates valley in se turkey during the late cenozoic due to the interaction between regional uplift and localised crustal deformation this work also demonstrates the benefits of applying multidisciplinary techniques to investigate an important but hitherto poorly documented river system

does climate change create distinctive patterns of landscape incision 1 incised fluvial systems are typically interpreted as recording geologically recent changes in either climate or tectonics however few diagnostic tools exist to evaluate whether particular incised landscapes primarily reflect climatic or tectonic perturbation here we summarize the results of a simple fluvial sediment transport model that allows us to contrast patterns of fluvial incision driven by changes in hydrology and sediment flux climate with those driven by changes in rock uplift patterns relative to sea level tectonics our modeling suggests that there may be diagnostic differences between the spatial and temporal patterns of incision caused by these different processes in particular incision driven by climate change is most commonly accompanied by downstream migrating waves of incision and decreases in channel gradient while under most circumstances incision driven by tectonics will be accompanied by upstream migrating incision and increases in channel gradient we apply our modeling to a case study of the north american high plains where regionally elevated surfaces east of the rockies have been incised up to 500 m by the fluvial systems draining the core of the range although this incision has been interpreted as reflecting a tectonic rejuvenation of the high plains our analysis suggests that climate change is at least as plausible an explanation to explain the incision of this landscape diagnostic differences between the climate and tectonic end member scenarios might be obtained via detailed study of the spatial and temporal patterns of terrace abandonment providing a potentially fruitful target for field investigation

active salt deformation and rapid transient incision along the colorado river near moab utah in certain settings erosion is driven by and balanced with tectonic uplift but the evolution of many landscapes is dominated by other factors such as geologic substrate drainage history and transient incision the colorado plateau is an example where these controls are debated and where salt deformation is hypothesized to be locally active and driven by differential unloading although this is unconfirmed and unquantified in most places we use luminescence dated colorado river terraces upstream of moab utah to quantify rates of salt driven subsidence and uplift at the local scale active deformation in the study area is also supported by patterns of concavity along tributary drainages crossing salt structures subsidence in professor valley at a time averaged rate of 500 m myr meters million years is superimposed upon rapid bedrock incision rates that increase from 600 to 900 m myr upstream through the study area such high rates are unexpected given the absence of sources of regional tectonic uplift here instead the incision rate pattern across the greater area is consistent with a transient signal perhaps still from ancient drainage integration through grand canyon far downstream and then amplified by unloading at both the broad regional scale and at the local canyon scale

geomorphic and tectonic process rates effects of measured time interval analysis of the original numerical components of diverse geomorphic and tectonic process rates indicates that process rate is not independent of measured time interval this implies that direct comparison of geologic process rates measured over variable time intervals may not be valid and that conclusions based on those comparisons regarding changes in rates through geologic time may be misleading in some cases calculation of statistically derived scaling functions is one approach that can be used to account for this measurement interval bias and to improve comparisons of geologic process rate data when this approach is used a 10 4 or 10 5 yr variation in the measured time interval accounts for approximately one order of magnitude change in the measured process rate the magnitude of the correction can substantially affect conclusions of studies that compare uncorrected process rates calculated from variable time intervals