Morphometric dating of the fluvial landscape response to a tectonic perturbation

Alain Demoulin

doi:10.1029/2012gl052201

journal article Aug 01, 2012

Morphometric dating of the fluvial landscape response to a tectonic perturbation

Alain Demoulin

Geophysical Research Letters Vol. 39 No. 15 · American Geophysical Union (AGU)

View at Publisher Save 10.1029/2012gl052201

Abstract

Despite constant progress in numerical and field studies of landscape evolution, time evolution is still poorly constrained in many uplifted areas where low denudation rates prevent the use of low temperature thermochronology, especially outside high relief mountainous areas. Here, I show that regional statistics of the landscape metric R involving hypsometric integrals at three nested levels of a catchment are able to isolate the time effect on landscape geometry during the latter's transient response to a tectonic perturbation. Analysis of 210 catchments from 9 regions of known uplift age worldwide shows that the regionally characteristic, R‐derivedSRindex is in inverse power law relation with the time elapsed since a base level lowering. Suggesting a response time of ∼5 My, this finding has important implications for quantifying the rate of landform evolution and determining whether a landscape has reached steady‐state form.

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Details

Published: Aug 01, 2012
Vol/Issue: 39(15)
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Authors

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Alain Demoulin

Cite This Article

Alain Demoulin (2012). Morphometric dating of the fluvial landscape response to a tectonic perturbation. Geophysical Research Letters, 39(15). https://doi.org/10.1029/2012gl052201

Morphometric dating of the fluvial landscape response to a tectonic perturbation

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