Climatic Controls on Continental Erosion and Sediment Transport

Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge LA

Investigators

Abstract

Although tectonic forces are known to exert a strong primary control over the generation of sediment, mostly through driving bedrock uplift, global and regional climate also play a dynamic role in controlling the production, transport, and distribution of sediments. How does climate mediate the sedimentary record and under what conditions can erosional signals be observed and interpreted unambiguously in terms of paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic change? The primary goals of this Geological Society of America (GSA) Penrose conference are i) to redefine the current state of research and identify the remaining key questions within this scientific community, ii) to present and discuss recent advances in understanding erosional records mediated directly and indirectly by paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental change, iii) to enhance the training of early career researchers (ECRs), especially from traditionally underrepresented communities, through networking and discussion among international scientists, and iv) to produce a GSA Special Publication following the proceedings of this conference. This award supports the participation of 15 student and ECRs, and three mid-career U.S. female scientists who lack support and are essential for critical mentoring activities. While it has long been recognized that bedrock erosion is increased by glaciation and heavier precipitation, the relationship among climatic, erosional, and sediment transport processes is more complex than that defined between erosion and tectonics. It has become clear that these relationships are rarely linear and furthermore vary across timescales of observation and within different tectonic settings. While climate-tectonic-erosion interactions have been the subject of numerous past workshops the influence of climate on erosion and sediment transport, especially on shorter timescales, has received less scrutiny. This GSA Penrose conference will address these issues with a group of 70-80 attendees in early August 2019. The group will be drawn from a variety of subdisciplines to further define and quantify the interrelationships amongst these processes. This is an especially opportune time to redefine community goals and undertake this synthesis because of the wealth of new climate records and long-term sedimentary records collected through international initiatives, most notably speleothem and the recently acquired monsoon records from IODP. Advances in techniques for dating erosional products, in tracing sediment sources, and modelling coupled climate-landscape systems now allow for much improved correlations to be made with greater confidence and further our fundamental understanding of the driving and reactive physical processes. This award was jointly funded by the Geomorphology and Land-use Dynamics (GLD) Program, the Sedimentary Geology and Paleobiology (SGP) Program, the Tectonics (TE) Program, and the Paleoperspectives on Climate Change (P2C2) Program in the Division of Earth Sciences, as well as the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) in the Office of Integrative Activities. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.