John C. Gosse

A geologically constrained Monte Carlo approach to modeling exposure ages from profiles of cosmogenic nuclides: An example from Lees Ferry, Arizona

We present a user-friendly and versatile Monte Carlo simulator for modeling profiles of in situ terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides (TCNs). Our program (available online at http://geochronology.earthsciences.dal.ca/downloads-models.html) permits the incorporation of site-specific geologic knowledge to calculate most probable values for exposure age, erosion rate, and inherited nuclide concentration while providing a rigorous treatment of their uncertainties. The simulator is demonstrated with 10Be data from a fluvial terrace at Lees Ferry, Arizona. Interpreted constraints on erosion, based on local soil properties and terrace morphology, yield a most probable exposure age and inheritance of 83.9−14.1+19.1 ka, and 9.49−2.52+1.21 × 104 atoms g−1, respectively (2σ). Without the ability to apply some constraint to either erosion rate or age, shallow depth profiles of any cosmogenic nuclide (except for nuclides produced via thermal and epithermal neutron capture, e.g., 36Cl) cannot be optimized to resolve either parameter. Contrasting simulations of 10Be data from both sand- and pebble-sized clasts within the same deposit indicate grain size can significantly affect the ability to model ages with TCN depth profiles and, when possible, sand—not pebbles—should be used for depth profile exposure dating.

Climate control on ancestral population dynamics: insight from Patagonian fish phylogeography

Changes in lake and stream habitats during the growth and retreat of Pleistocene glaciers repeatedly altered the spatial distributions and population sizes of the aquatic fauna of the southern Andes. Here, we use variation in mtDNA control region sequences to infer the temporal dynamics of two species of southern Andean fish during the past few million years. At least five important climate events were associated with major demographic changes: (i) the widespread glaciations of the mid‐Pliocene (c. 3.5 Ma); (ii) the largest Patagonian glaciation (1.1 Ma); (iii) the coldest Pleistocene glaciation as indicated by stacked marine δ18O (c. 0.7 Ma); (iv) the last southern Patagonian glaciation to reach the Atlantic coast (180 ka); and (v) the last glacial maximum (LGM, 23–25 000 years ago). The colder‐water inhabitant, Galaxias platei, underwent a strong bottleneck during the LGM and its haplotype diversity coalesces c. 0.7 Ma. In contrast, the more warm‐adapted and widely distributed Percichthys trucha showed continuous growth through the last two glacial cycles but went through an important bottleneck c. 180 000 years ago, at which time populations east of the Andes may have been eliminated. Haplotype diversity of the most divergent P. trucha populations, found west of the Andes, coalesces c. 3.2 Ma. The demographic timelines obtained for the two species thus illustrate the continent‐wide response of aquatic life in Patagonia to climate change during the Pleistocene, but also show how differing ecological traits and distributions led to distinctive responses.

Mid-Pliocene warm-period deposits in the High Arctic yield insight into camel evolution

The mid-Pliocene was a global warm period, preceding the onset of Quaternary glaciations. Here we use cosmogenic nuclide dating to show that a fossiliferous terrestrial deposit that includes subfossil trees and the northern-most evidence of Pliocene ice wedge casts in Canada’s High Arctic (Ellesmere Island, Nunavut) was deposited during the mid-Pliocene warm period. The age estimates correspond to a general maximum in high latitude mean winter season insolation, consistent with the presence of a rich, boreal-type forest. Moreover, we report that these deposits have yielded the first evidence of a High Arctic camel, identified using collagen fingerprinting of a fragmentary fossil limb bone. Camels originated in North America and dispersed to Eurasia via the Bering Isthmus, an ephemeral land bridge linking Alaska and Russia. The results suggest that the evolutionary history of modern camels can be traced back to a lineage of giant camels that was well established in a forested Arctic.

Rock avalanches and the pace of late Quaternary development of river valleys in the Karakoram Himalaya

We discuss the implications of a set of terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide (TCN) ages on blocky, cross-valley deposits of large rock avalanches along upper Indus streams. The dated deposits are key to understanding late Quaternary events that play a major role in landscape evolution in the Karakoram Himalaya. The landslides occurred between 3 and 8 ka ago, challenging existing chronologies of events along Indus streams. The TCN ages may support a mid-Holocene climatic role in preparing slopes for failure, but the balance of evidence suggests that large earthquakes triggered the landslides. Each landslide dammed the Indus or a major tributary and controlled base level and sedimentation for millennia. They produced landforms long regarded as characteristic of the region, including extensive lacustrine deposits, flights of river terraces, epigenetic gorges, and sediment fans. Until the 1990s, most of the landslides were interpreted as moraines; related lacustrine and other sediments continue to be attributed to glacial damming, and stream terraces to tectonic processes. Generally they were seen to originate tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years earlier than the new ages require. Instead we argue that they record interactions among different geomorphic processes in landslide-fragmented valleys during the Holocene. Rather than being geomorphic markers of tectonic and climatic events, the landslides have buffered or redirected climatic and tectonic forcing. In such an active orogen, millennia-long episodes of zero net bedrock incision at each site are surprising. However, rates of sedimentation above landslide barriers and erosion controlled by their breaching are close to today9s high measured rates for geomorphic activity. We propose that landslide-fragmented rivers may, in fact, characterize interglaciations and future patterns of upper Indus landscape evolution at time scales of 10 3 to 10 4 years.

Colorado River chronostratigraphy at Lee’s Ferry, Arizona, and the Colorado Plateau bull’s-eye of incision

ABSTRACTLee’s Ferry (Arizona, United States) lies at an important geo-logic transition between the Grand Canyon margin and the Canyon-lands center of the Colorado Plateau. It marks a knickpoint along the Colorado River at the top of the steep Grand Canyon, and it is central to debate about the patterns of erosion and sources of uplift in this famous landscape. New chronostratigraphic data from the suite of fi ll terraces here indicate a strong fl uvial response to climate driv-ers superimposed upon an integrated mid-to-late Pleistocene incision rate of ~350 m/m.y. A regional compilation of well-constrained results over the same timescale reveals that this is intermediate between slower rates downstream in Grand Canyon and even faster rates in the central Colorado Plateau, which taper off again farther upstream near the plateau’s eastern edge. This bull’s-eye pattern of rapid inci-sion in the central Colorado Plateau does not match proposed sources of uplift from mantle dynamics at the south and west fl ank of the pla-teau, nor patterns of river steepness and energy. Instead we suggest that this incision pattern is primarily driven by transient response to drainage integration and isostatic feedback from the deep exhuma-tion of weak rocks in the central plateau.INTRODUCTION

Quaternary faulting in Queen Valley, California-Nevada: Implications for kinematics of fault-slip transfer in the eastern California shear zone- Walker Lane belt

New geologic map, tectonic, geomorphologic, and terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide (TCN) geochronologic data document the geometry, style, kinematics, and slip rates on late Quaternary faults within the Queen Valley, California-Nevada area. These data provide important insight into the kinematics of fault-slip transfer from the dextral White Mountains fault zone northward into the Mina defl ection. Queen Valley is an ~16-kmlong, NE-trending basin bounded to the south by the White Mountains and underlain by four major Pleistocene to Holocene alluvialfan surfaces. Four different fault types and orientations cut and offset all but the youngest surfaces: (1) The normal-slip Queen Valley fault, which consists of a set of NE-striking, NW- and SE-dipping normal fault scarps that cut across the SE side of the valley and offset all but the youngest surfaces; (2) discontinuous NE-striking, sinistral faults exposed on the north side of the valley; (3) the NW-striking dextral Coyote Springs fault, which merges into (4) a set of E-W‐striking thrust faults. Measured offsets across normal fault scarps developed within 10 Be TCN-dated surfaces yield minimum late Pleistocene horizontal extension rates of 0.1‐0.3 mm/yr. Documented fault geometries and slip orientations across Queen Valley suggest that fault-slip transfer models, such as the extensional displacement transfer, block rotation, and simple shear models, within the dextral fault system proposed for the eastern California shear zone‐ Walker Lane belt are not applicable to this part of the Mina defl ection. Rather, dextral fault slip is transferred by both a restraining westward step and a releasing eastward step. Restraining and releasing bends have been extensively documented at a range of scales in strike-slip fault tectonic settings globally, and they have been simulated in analog models; thus, it is not surprising to document both within the ~630-km-long dextral shear zone that makes up the northern eastern California shear zone‐Walker Lane belt. Our results, combined with published slip rates for the dextral White Mountain fault zone and the eastern sinistral Coaldale fault, suggest that transfer of dextral slip into the Mina defl ection is partitioned into three different components: horizontal extension along the Queen Valley fault, thrust faulting that merges into the dominantly dextral slip along the Coyote Springs fault, and dominantly sinistral slip along the Coaldale fault. A velocity vector diagram of fault-slip partitioning across Queen Valley predicts a small component of contraction across the Coyote Springs and western Coaldale faults. Contraction across the Mina defl ection is consistent with global positioning system data. An observed reduction in late Pleistocene fault-slip rates at the northern end of the eastern California shear zone and across the southwestern part of the Mina defl ection may be explained by distribution of slip across a much broader zone than generally thought.

New kinematic and geochronologic evidence for the Quaternary evolution of the Central Anatolian fault zone (CAFZ)

As the kinematics of active faults that bound the Anatolian plate are well studied, it is now essential to improve our understanding of the style and rates of intraplate deformation to constrain regional strain partitioning and improve seismic risk assessments. One of these internal structures, the Central Anatolian fault zone (CAFZ), was originally defined as a regionally significant left-lateral “tectonic escape” structure, stretching for 700 km in a NE direction across the Anatolian plate. We provide new structural, geomorphic, and geochronologic data for several key segments within the central part of the CAFZ that suggest that the sinistral motion has been overstated. The Ecemis fault, the southernmost part of the CAFZ, has a late-Quaternary minimum slip rate of 1.1 ± 0.4 mm a−1, slower than originally proposed. Farther north, the Erciyes fault has fed a linear array of monogenetic vents of the Erciyes stratovolcano and 40Ar/39Ar dating shows a syneruptive stress field of ESE-WNW extension from 580 ± 130 ka to 210 ± 180 ka. In the Erciyes basin, and central part of the CAFZ, we mapped and recharacterized the Erkilet and Gesi faults as predominantly extensional. These long-term geological rates support recent GPS observations that reveal ESE-WNW extension, which we propose as the driver of faulting since 2.73 ± 0.08 Ma. The slip rates and kinematics derived in this study are not typical of an “escape tectonic” structure. The CAFZ is a transtensional fault system that reactivates paleotectonic structures and accommodates E-W extension associated with the westward movement of Anatolia.

Neotectonics of the Western Nepal Fault System: Implications for Himalayan strain partitioning

Oblique convergence at the Himalayan margin is hypothesized to be partitioned by orogen-normal thrusting and orogen-parallel strike-slip faulting. We conducted field mapping and remote sensing in the Dhaulagiri Range of Nepal, and the results reveal an active regional fault system termed the Western Nepal Fault System (WNFS). Right and normally offset Quaternary deposits and brittly deformed bedrock demarcate dextral slip along two strike-slip faults striking N40–50°W linked via an extensional right step over striking N10–20°E. The strike-slip attitudes subparallel bedrock foliation, while the step over cuts at a high angle (~70°). Fault slip data along the strike-slip segments trend N70°W with minor dip component, top to north. Fault slip data and observed kinematics along the WNFS support our interpretation that the WNFS formed via arc-parallel stress. On the basis of geometry, kinematics, and structural position we correlate the WNFS to active faults between the Karakoram and Bari Gad faults. This suggests an ~350 km long dextral fault system extending obliquely across the Western Nepal Himalaya which appears to intersect the Main Frontal Thrust (MFT) near 83°30′E, coinciding with a large gradient in the arc-parallel component of GPS velocities. We interpret the WNFS to represent a class of orogen-parallel strike-slip faults working with subduction to accommodate obliquely convergent plate motion. Our observations support the hypothesis that the region lying between the MFT and the WNFS is a continental version of a fore-arc sliver bounded at its base by the Main Himalayan Thrust.

Enigmatic boulder trains, supraglacial rock avalanches, and the origin of "Darwin's boulders," Tierra del Fuego

Charles Darwin considered himself to be a geologist and published extensively on many geologic phenomena. He was intrigued with the distribution of erratic boulders and speculated upon their origins. In his accounts of the voyage of the HMS Beagle, Darwin described crystalline boulders of notable size and abundance near Bahia San Sebastian, south of the Strait of Magellan, Tierra del Fuego. Influenced by Charles Lyell’s reflections upon slow, vertical movements of crust, submer gence, and ice rafting to explain drift, Darwin proposed that the boulders of Bahia San Sebastian were ice-rafted. Benefiting from 170 years of subsequent study of the glacial history of Tierra del Fuego, petrography, and terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide measurements, we revisit the origin of “Darwin’s Boulders” at Bahia San Sebastian. We suggest that they, as well as another train of boulders to the west, at Bahia Inutil, represent rock falls of Beagle-type granite from the Cordillera Darwin onto glacial ice flowing into the Bahia Inutil–Bahia San Sebas tian lobe. These supraglacial rock avalanche deposits were subsequently elongated into boulder trains by glacial strain during transport and then deposited upon moraines. The cosmogenic nuclide exposure dates support the correlation of Andean glaciations with the marine oxygen isotope record and the glacial chronologies recently proposed for Tierra del Fuego.

Cordilleran Ice Sheet mass loss preceded climate reversals near the Pleistocene Termination

Disappearance of an ice sheet The Cordilleran Ice Sheet is thought to have covered westernmost Canada until about 13,000 years ago, even though the warming and sea level rise of the last deglaciation had begun more than a thousand years earlier. This out-of-phase behavior has puzzled glaciologists because it is not clear what mechanisms could account for it. Menounos et al. report measurements of the ages of cirque and valley glaciers that show that much of western Canada was ice-free as early as 14,000 years ago—a finding that better agrees with the record of global ice volume (see the Perspective by Marcott and Shakun). Previous reconstructions seem not to have adequately reflected the complexity of ice sheet decay. Science, this issue p. 781; see also p. 721 The last deglaciation of western Canada began earlier than previously thought. The Cordilleran Ice Sheet (CIS) once covered an area comparable to that of Greenland. Previous geologic evidence and numerical models indicate that the ice sheet covered much of westernmost Canada as late as 12.5 thousand years ago (ka). New data indicate that substantial areas throughout westernmost Canada were ice free prior to 12.5 ka and some as early as 14.0 ka, with implications for climate dynamics and the timing of meltwater discharge to the Pacific and Arctic oceans. Early Bølling-Allerød warmth halved the mass of the CIS in as little as 500 years, causing 2.5 to 3.0 meters of sea-level rise. Dozens of cirque and valley glaciers, along with the southern margin of the CIS, advanced into recently deglaciated regions during the Bølling-Allerød and Younger Dryas.