Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors.

Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface

Mountains formed by tectonic uplift of the Earth’s surface are reshaped and removed by denudation (widespread erosion and weathering) over geological time scales. The mountain landscapes that we see today are strongly influenced by late Cenozoic climate change during a period when Earth underwent dramatic swings between glacial and interglacial conditions over the past 3 million years. However, the relative importance for landscape evolution of glacial erosion during cold periods and fluvial erosion during warmer periods remains highly debated.

Schanz and Yanites [2024] use a combined fluvial and glacial landscape evolution model to explore the impact of glaciation on continental-scale sediment flux and denudation. While glacial erosion is often assumed to be more efficient than fluvial erosion, this paper shows that late Cenozoic glaciations did not lead to an overall increase in denudation at continental scales. The mechanism inferred in this study is a protection against fluvial erosion of riverbeds by an increased cover of the riverbeds by coarse glacial sediments. The themes explored in this paper are of interest to the geomorphology community as well as a broader scientific community working on interactions between climate and tectonics and provide new ideas to continue this discussion. 

Citation: Schanz, S. A., & Yanites, B. J. (2024). Reconciling rapid glacial erosion and steady basin accumulation rates in the late Cenozoic through the effect of glacial sediment on fluvial erosion. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 129, e2024JF007721. https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JF007721

—Ann Rowan, Associate Editor, JGR: Earth Surface

Text © 2024. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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