Liran Goren

In situ low-relief landscape formation as a result of river network disruption

Landscapes on Earth retain a record of the tectonic, environmental and climatic history under which they formed. Landscapes tend towards an equilibrium in which rivers attain a stable grade that balances the tectonic production of elevation and with hillslopes that attain a gradient steep enough to transport material to river channels. Equilibrium low-relief surfaces are typically found at low elevations, graded to sea level. However, there are many examples of high-elevation, low-relief surfaces, often referred to as relict landscapes, or as elevated peneplains. These do not grade to sea level and are typically interpreted as uplifted old landscapes, preserving former, more moderate tectonic conditions. Here we test this model of landscape evolution through digital topographic analysis of a set of purportedly relict landscapes on the southeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau, one of the most geographically complex, climatically varied and biologically diverse regions of the world. We find that, in contrast to theory, the purported surfaces are not consistent with progressive establishment of a new, steeper, river grade, and therefore they cannot necessarily be interpreted as a remnant of an old, low relief surface. We propose an alternative model, supported by numerical experiments, in which tectonic deformation has disrupted the regional river network, leaving remnants of it isolated and starved of drainage area and thus unable to balance tectonic uplift. The implication is that the state of low relief with low erosion rate is developing in situ, rather than preserving past erosional conditions.

Inversion of fluvial channels for paleorock uplift rates in Taiwan

The transient response of erosion to changes in rock uplift rate leads to the preservation of rock uplift history in the long profiles of rivers. However, extracting this information is nontrivial as changes in channel steepness are the result of both spatial and temporal changes in rock uplift rate, as well as other factors such as climate and rock type. We exploit an analytical linear solution for river channel profile evolution in response to erosion and tectonic uplift to investigate the rock uplift history of Taiwan. The analytical approach allows us to solve the linear inverse problem, efficiently extracting rock uplift as a function of space and time, from digital elevation data. We assess the potential of fluvial topography to resolve rock uplift rates using three approaches: (1) a synthetic resolution test, (2) analysis of the forward model to demonstrate where in space and time the fluvial topography constrains rock uplift rate, and (3) interpretation of the model resolution matrix. Furthermore, the potential to analyze large data sets reduces the influence of stochastic processes such as landslides, small-scale river network reorganization, and also local lithological variability. In Taiwan, our analysis suggests that current rock uplift rates exceed erosion rates across much of the island and that there has been an increase in rock uplift rates since 0.5 Ma across the Central Range.

Modes and rates of horizontal deformation from rotated river basins: Application to the Dead Sea fault system in Lebanon

Partitioning of horizontal deformation between localized and distributed modes in regions of oblique tectonic convergence is, in many cases, hard to quantify. Here we use the geometry of river basins and numerical modeling to evaluate modes and rates of horizontal deformation associated with the Arabia-Sinai relative plate motion in Lebanon. We focus on river basins that drain Mount Lebanon to the west and are bounded by the Yammouneh fault, a segment of the Dead Sea fault system that transfers left-lateral deformation across the Lebanese restraining bend. We quantify a systematic counterclockwise rotation of these basins and evaluate drainage area disequilibrium using the χ metric. The analysis indicates a systematic spatial pattern whereby tributaries of the rotated basins appear to experience drainage area loss or gain with respect to channel length. A kinematic model reveals that since the late Miocene, 23%–31% of the relative plate motion parallel to the plate boundary has been distributed along a wide band of deformation to the west of the Yammouneh fault. Taken together with previous, shorter-term estimates, the model indicates little variation of slip rate along the Yammouneh fault since the late Miocene. Kinematic model results are compatible with late Miocene paleomagnetic rotations in western Mount Lebanon. A numerical landscape evolution experiment demonstrates the emergence of a similar pattern of drainage area disequilibrium in response to progressive distributed shear deformation of river basins with relatively minor drainage network reorganization.

A theoretical model for fluvial channel response time during time-dependent climatic and tectonic forcing and its inverse applications†

The fluvial response time dictates the duration of fluvial channel adjustment in response to changing climatic and tectonic conditions. However, when these conditions vary continuously, the channel cannot equilibrate and the response time is not well defined. Here I develop an analytical solution to the linear stream power model of fluvial incision that predicts the channel topography as a function of time-dependent climatic and tectonic conditions. From this solution, a general definition of the fluvial response time emerges: the duration over which the tectonic history needs to be known to evaluate channel topography. This new definition is used in linear inversion schemes for inferring climatic or tectonic histories from river long profiles. The analytic solution further reveals that high-frequency climatic oscillations, such as Milankovitch cycles, are not expected to leave significant fingerprints on the long profiles of fluvially incised detachment-limited rivers.

Partitioning sediment flux by provenance and tracing erosion patterns in Taiwan

We critically evaluate the potential and limitations of an alternative way to calculate erosion rates based on petrographic and mineralogical fingerprints of fluvial sediments coupled with gauged sediment fluxes. Our approach allows us to apportion sediment loads to different lithological units, and consequently to discriminate erosion rates in different tectonic domains within each catchment. Our provenance data on modern Taiwanese sands indicate focused erosion in the Backbone Range and Tananao Complex of the retrowedge. Lower rates are inferred for the northern part of the island characterized by tectonic extension and for the western foothills in the prowedge. The principal factor of uncertainty affecting our estimates is the inevitably inaccurate evaluation of total sediment load, because only the suspended flux was measured. Another is the assumption that suspended load and bed load are derived from the same sources in fixed proportions. Additional errors are caused by the insufficiently precise definition of lithologically similar compositional end-members and by the temporal variability of sediment composition at the outlet of each catchment related to the spatial variability of erosional processes and triggering agents such as earthquakes, typhoons, and landslides. To evaluate the robustness of our findings, we applied a morphometric technique based on the stream-power model. The results obtained are broadly consistent, with local discrepancies ascribed to poorly constrained assumptions and choices of scaling parameters. Our local erosion estimates are consistent with GPS uplift rates measured on a decadal timescale and generally higher than basin-wide results inferred from cosmogenic-nuclide and thermochronology data.

Landscape ‘stress’ and reorganization from χ-maps: Insights from experimental drainage networks in oblique collision setting: LANDSCAPE STRESS AND REORGANIZATION FROM χ-MAPS

Several recent studies have suggested that maps of flow length normalized for drainage area called chi (χ) could reveal landscapes in a transient state, which are prone to reorganizations of basin geometry, flow line topology and water divide locations. However, the potentially long timescales associated with the evolution of basin geometry make the capability of χ to predict such reorganization challenging to test in natural settings. Here, we investigate the evolution of experimental drainage networks developed on a wedge coupled to a piedmont and growing in oblique convergence. We use this experimental setting to investigate the relationships between χ maps, the imposed tectonic deformation and the drainage network evolution. As deposition can occur within channels or in the piedmont, our experimental streams deviate from purely bedrock channels for which the χ metric has been initially developed. Yet we show that the large‐scale χ pattern of the experimental drainage network is consistent with the imposed deformation field, as ∼2/3 of the observed χ gradients across water divide are oriented in the expected direction with respect to the imposed deformation. This suggests that χ maps can be used to infer the horizontal component of regional deformation in large‐scale natural mountainous fluvial landscapes. In addition, we observe that when a divide affected by a χ gradient migrates, the orientation of the gradient correctly anticipates the sense of landscape reorganization for ∼2/3 of these divides.