TY - JOUR
T1 - Orogen response to changes in climatic and tectonic forcing
AU - Whipple, Kelin X.
AU - Meade, Brendan J.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was funded by the NSF Continental Dynamics Program through Grant EAR-003571 to Whipple and a Daly Postdoctoral Fellowship grant to Meade. Careful reviews by George Hilley, Peter Molnar, and two anonymous reviews of an earlier draft significantly improved the manuscript.
PY - 2006/3/15
Y1 - 2006/3/15
N2 - Despite much progress, many questions remain regarding the potential dynamic coupling between atmospheric and lithospheric processes in the long-term evolution of mountain belts. As a complement to recent efforts to discover the interrelationships among climate, topography, erosion, and rock deformation under conditions of mass-flux steady state, we explore orogen response to changes in climate and tectonic influx. We derive an analytical model that predicts a powerful climatic control on orogen evolution and distinct, potentially diagnostic, responses to climatic and tectonic perturbations. Due to isostatic compensation, the near-surface rock uplift rate during transients is tightly coupled to climate-modulated erosional efficiency. System response is approximately exponential, with a characteristic response timescale that is inversely proportional to the climate- and lithology-modulated erosional efficiency, and is largely insensitive to initial conditions, tectonic influx, and both the sign and magnitude of perturbations.
AB - Despite much progress, many questions remain regarding the potential dynamic coupling between atmospheric and lithospheric processes in the long-term evolution of mountain belts. As a complement to recent efforts to discover the interrelationships among climate, topography, erosion, and rock deformation under conditions of mass-flux steady state, we explore orogen response to changes in climate and tectonic influx. We derive an analytical model that predicts a powerful climatic control on orogen evolution and distinct, potentially diagnostic, responses to climatic and tectonic perturbations. Due to isostatic compensation, the near-surface rock uplift rate during transients is tightly coupled to climate-modulated erosional efficiency. System response is approximately exponential, with a characteristic response timescale that is inversely proportional to the climate- and lithology-modulated erosional efficiency, and is largely insensitive to initial conditions, tectonic influx, and both the sign and magnitude of perturbations.
KW - Climate
KW - Critical wedge
KW - Erosion
KW - Rock uplift
KW - Tectonics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=33344459153&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=33344459153&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.epsl.2005.12.022
DO - 10.1016/j.epsl.2005.12.022
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:33344459153
VL - 243
SP - 218
EP - 228
JO - Earth and Planetary Sciences Letters
JF - Earth and Planetary Sciences Letters
SN - 0012-821X
IS - 1-2
ER -