Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Geomorphology
Climbing Ripple Successions in Turbidite Systems: Depositional Environments, Sedimentation Rates, and Accumulation Times
Published: 2018-01-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Climbing-ripple cross-lamination (CRCL) is most commonly deposited by turbidity currents when suspended load fallout and bedload transport occur contemporaneously. The angle of ripple climb reflects the ratio of suspended load fallout and bedload sedimentation rates, allowing for the calculation of the flow properties and durations of turbidity currents. Three areas exhibiting thick (> 50 m) [...]
Two Fundamentally Different Types of Submarine Canyons Along the Continental Margin of Equatorial Guinea
Published: 2018-01-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Most submarine canyons are erosive conduits cut deeply into the world’s continental shelves through which sediment is transported from areas of high coastal sediment supply onto large submarine fans. However, many submarine canyons in areas of low sediment supply do not have associated submarine fans and show significantly different morphologies and depositional processes from those of ‘classic’ [...]
Facies and Architectural Asymmetry in a Conglomerate-Rich Submarine Channel Fill, Cerro Toro Formation, Sierra Del Toro, Magallanes Basin, Chile
Published: 2018-01-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Cross-sectional asymmetry is characteristic of sinuous channels, in both fluvial and submarine settings. Less well documented are the facies distributions of asymmetric channels, particularly in submarine settings. Exposures of the axial channel-belt in the Magallanes retro-arc foreland basin on Sierra del Toro represent the fill of a 3.5 km wide, 300 m thick channel complex, here termed the [...]
Prediction of wave ripple characteristics using genetic programming
Published: 2018-01-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We integrate published data sets of field and laboratory experiments of wave ripples and use genetic programming, a machine learning paradigm, in an attempt to develop a universal equilibrium predictor for ripple wavelength, height, and steepness. We train our genetic programming algorithm with data selected using a maximum dissimilarity selection routine. Thanks to this selection algorithm we [...]
Relict topography within the Hangay Mountains in central Mongolia: Quantifying long-term exhumation and relief change in an old landscape
Published: 2018-01-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
The Hangay Mountains are a high-elevation, low-relief landscape within the greater Mongolian Plateau of central Asia. New bedrock apatite (U-Th)/He single-grain ages from the Hangay span ~70 to 200 Ma, with a mean of 122.7 ± 24.0 Ma (2σ). Detrital apatite samples from the Selenga and Orkhon Rivers, north of the mountains, yield dominant (U-Th)/He age populations of ~115 to 130 Ma, as well as an [...]
Climate-driven unsteady denudation and sediment flux in a high-relief unglaciated catchment-fan using 26Al and 10Be: Panamint Valley, California
Published: 2018-01-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
Environmental changes within erosional catchments of sediment routing systems are predicted to modulate sediment transfer dynamics. However, empirical and numerical models that predict such phenomena are difficult to test in natural systems over multi-millennial timescales. Tectonic boundary conditions and climate history in the Panamint Range, California, are relatively well-constrained by [...]
Exploring carbonate reef flat hydrodynamics and potential formation and growth mechanisms for motu
Published: 2018-01-11
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Atolls, which develop as reef-building coral platforms extend to near sea level, typically consist of a shallow reef flat encircling a central lagoon. Often, sub-aerial islets, known as motu or reef islands, consisting of sand, gravel, and coral detritus, can be found perched on the reef flat. Here, we use hydrodynamic numerical modeling (XBeach) to better understand the role of waves and [...]
The effect of meteoric phreatic diagenesis and spring sapping on the formation of submarine collapse structures in the Biak Basin, Eastern Indonesia
Published: 2018-01-11
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The islands of Biak and Supiori, situated in the Bird’s Head region of New Guinea, comprise predominantly Neogene age carbonate units that extend offshore into the adjacent Biak Basin. Unusual geomorphologic features including pockmarks, headless canyons and semi-circular collapse structures identified in multibeam bathymetric imagery occur on the southern margin of the Biak Basin. These [...]
Estimating regional flood discharge during Palaeocene-Eocene global warming (submitted)
Published: 2018-01-04
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Among the most urgent challenges in future climate change scenarios is accurately predicting the magnitude at which precipitation extremes will intensify. Analogous changes have been reported for an episode of millennial scale 5°C warming termed the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM; 56 Ma), providing independent constraints on hydrological response to global warming. However, quantifying [...]
Exogenic forcing and autogenic processes on continental divide location and mobility -- preprint
Published: 2017-12-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
The position and mobility of drainage divides is an expression of exogenic landscape forcing and autogenic channel network processes integrated across a range of scales. At the large scale, represented by major rivers and continental drainage divides, the organization of drainage patterns and divide migration reflects the long-wavelength gradients of the topography, which are exogenically [...]
Criteria and Tools for Determining Drainage Divide Stability
Published: 2017-12-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Watersheds are the fundamental organizing units in landscapes and thus the controls on drainage divide location and mobility are an essential facet of landscape evolution. Additionally, many common topographic analyses fundamentally assume that river network topology and divide locations are largely static, allowing channel profile form to be interpreted in terms of spatio-temporal patterns of [...]
Neogene - Quaternary slow coastal uplift of Western Europe through the perspective of sequences of strandlines from the Cotentin Peninsula (Normandy, France)
Published: 2017-12-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Cotentin Peninsula (Normandy, France) displays sequences of marine terraces and rasas, the latter being wide Late Cenozoic coastal erosion surfaces, that are typical of Western European coasts in Portugal, Spain, France and southern England. Remote sensing imagery and field mapping enabled reappraisal of the Cotentin coastal sequences. From bottom to top, the N Cotentin sequence includes four [...]
Lithospheric flexure and rheology determined by climate cycle markers in the Corinth Rift
Published: 2017-11-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
Geomorphic strain markers accumulating the effects of many earthquake cycles help to constrain the mechanical behaviour of continental rift systems as well as the related seismic hazards. In the Corinth Rift (Greece), the unique record of onshore and offshore markers of Pleistocene ~100-ka climate cycles provides an outstanding possibility to constrain rift mechanics over a range of timescales. [...]
The role of coseismic Coulomb stress changes in shaping the hard-link between normal fault segments
Published: 2017-11-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Tectonics and Structure
The mechanism and evolution of fault linkage is important in the growth and development of large faults. Here we investigate the role of coseismic stress changes in shaping the hard-links between parallel normal fault segments (or faults), by comparing numerical models of the Coulomb stress change from simulated earthquakes on two en echelon fault segments to natural observations of hard-linked [...]
Temperatures recorded by cosmogenic noble gases since the last glacial maximum in the Maritime Alps
Published: 2017-11-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geomorphology, Glaciology, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
While proxy records have been used to reconstruct late Quaternary climate parameters throughout the European Alps, our knowledge of deglacial climate conditions in the Maritime Alps is limited. Here, we report temperatures recorded by a new and independent geochemical technique—cosmogenic noble gas paleothermometry—in the Maritime Alps since the last glacial maximum. We measured cosmogenic 3He in [...]