No abstract

Slow erosion has characterized the Namib Desert, the Namibian escarpment, and the adjacent Namibian highlands over the Pleistocene. Paired analyses (n‫)66؍‬ of in-situ-produced 10 Be and 26 Al in quartz-bearing samples of bedrock primarily from inselbergs, of sediment from dry river and stream channels, and of clasts from desert surfaces reveal large inventories of these cosmogenic nuclides indicating significant landscape stability over at least the past million years.Bedrock samples (n ‫؍‬ 47) collected in three transects from the coast, across the escarpment, and into the highlands, show no spatial pattern in elevation-normalized nuclide abundance despite a difference in mean annual precipitation (MAP) between sample sites at the coast (MAP <25 mm yr ؊1 ) and those in the highlands (MAP >400 mm yr ؊1 ). Average model erosion rates inland of the escarpment (3.2 ؎ 1.5, n ‫؍‬ 9) are indistinguishable from average rates seaward of the escarpment (3.6 ؎ 1.9, n ‫؍‬ 38) indicating that rock on the pedimented coastal plain is eroding at the same rate as rock in the highlands. Sediment samples (n ‫؍‬ 3) from small streams suggest that the landscape as a whole is eroding more rapidly than the bedrock outcrops and that a basin in the steep escarpment zone is eroding several times faster (16 m my ؊1 ) than either a basin in the highlands (5 m my ؊1 ) or a basin in the coastal plain (8 m my ؊1 ). Data from large rivers (n ‫؍‬ 4) constrain erosion rates, averaged over 10 5 yrs and 10 4 to 10 5 km 2 , between 3 and 9 m my ؊1 . Small quartz clasts (n ‫؍‬ 12) collected from four desert surfaces record extraordinarily long, variable, and in some cases complex exposure histories. Simple 10 Be model ages are as high as 1.8 my; some minimum total histories, considering both 10 Be and 26 Al and including both burial and exposure, exceed 2.7 my. As a group, the Namibian cosmogenic data do not support the model of significant and on-going escarpment retreat.The similarity of erosion rates calculated from 10 Be analysis of fluvial sediments and longer-term (10 7 yr), average mass removal rates estimated by others using fission track analysis of rock suggests that Namibian erosion rates have reached a steady state and are changing little over time. At outcrop scales, the concordance of 10 Be and 26 Al in most bedrock samples suggests that the model of steady, uniform bedrock erosion is valid; there is no indication of intermittent burial, shedding of thick rock slabs, or stripping of previous cover. At an intermediate scale, a transect of bedrock samples north of Gobabeb demonstrates that the northern boundary of the massive Namib Sand Sea has been steady and unshifting. Similarly low cosmogenically estimated erosion rates across west and central Namibia suggest that the landscape is in geomorphic steady state, its overall appearance changing only slowly through time.

Despite elevated summer insolation forcing during the early Holocene, global ice sheets retained nearly half of their volume from the Last Glacial Maximum, as indicated by deglacial records of global mean sea level (GMSL). Partitioning the GMSL rise among potential sources requires accurate dating of ice-sheet extent to estimate ice-sheet volume. Here, we date the final retreat of the Laurentide Ice Sheet

No abstract

Using 10Be and 26Al measured in sediment and bedrock, we quantify rates of upland erosion and sediment supply to a small basin in northwestern New Mexico. This and many other similar basins in the southwestern United States have been affected by cycles of arroyo incision and backfilling several times in the past few millennia. The sediment generation (275 ± 65 g m−2 yr−1) and bedrock equivalent lowering rates (102 ± 24 m myr−1) we determine are sufficient to support at least three arroyo cycles in the past 3,000 years, consistent with rates calculated from a physical sediment budget within the basin and regional rates determined using other techniques. Nuclide concentrations measured in different sediment sources and reservoirs suggest that the arroyo is a good spatial and temporal integrator of sediment and associated nuclide concentrations from throughout the basin, that the basin is in steady-state, and that nuclide concentration is independent of sediment grain size. Differences between nuclide concentrations measured in sediment sources and reservoirs reflect sediment residence times and indicate that subcolluvial bedrock weathering on hillslopes supplies more sediment to the basin than erosion of exposed bedrock.