Upstream propagation of sea-level signals in fluvio-deltaic environments: time-lags and the dynamics of the fluvial surface

This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. The published version of this Preprint is available: https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL097956. This is version 1 of this Preprint.

Add a Comment

You must log in to post a comment.


Comments

There are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article.

Downloads

Download Preprint

Authors

Madeline Kollegger, Jorge Lorenzo-Trueba , Anjali M Fernandes , Arvind Singh, Antoinette Abeyta

Abstract

Stratigraphic interpretation generally relies upon the assumption that the fluvio-deltaic surface responds uniformly to sea-level changes; however, recent theoretical work suggests that changes in its relief and concavity can influence the propagation of sea-level information upstream and result in geologically long-lived lags in the system response. We test this theoretical result using measurements from a experimental delta subject to high and low magnitude sea-level oscillations. In both cases, changes in relief and curvature of the fluvio-deltaic profile result in the proximal portion of the profile being out of phase with respect to sea-level cycles, whereas the nearshore regions remain in phase. These results underscore the importance of delayed response to sea-level variations in the upstream portion of river deltas, often resulting in net erosion during sea-level rise and potentially complicating the reconstruction of paleo sea-level from deltaic deposits.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31223/X5J33J

Subjects

Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Keywords

Shoreline, Fluvial surface, Fluvial deltas, Sea-level cycles

Dates

Published: 2022-04-15 00:27

License

CC BY Attribution 4.0 International

Additional Metadata

Data Availability (Reason not available):
The experimental data used in this paper was accessed at the SEAD Data Repository, project titled TDB_15_1. The url is as follows: https://sead2.ncsa.illinois.edu/datasets/58dd9ac4e4b0b223acc5ff80. Access to the database is not restricted, and lies in the public domain. The codes associated with the data analysis were written in MatLab and can be found on the following Zenodo repository: DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5475273. Access to the code is not restricted, and lies in the public domain.