Inversion of Dadu River Bedrock Channels for the Late Cenozoic Uplift History of the Eastern Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

The Dadu River in the eastern Tibetan Plateau has the potential to record transient variations of tectonic uplift since the Late Cenozoic. In this study, we extracted bedrock channels of the Dadu River drainage basin from the 30 m ASTER digital elevation model. The longitudinal river profiles were then analyzed, and three generations of knickpoints were recognized via the slope area method. By solving the analytical solution of the linear transient stream power incision model, we determined a Late Cenozoic history of regional tectonic uplift. The results reveal slow pre–middle Miocene uplift rates (<0.1 mm/a) and then increased gradually to 0.33 ± 0.03 mm/a since 12–15 Ma until present. This increase of uplift rate from bedrock channel inversion is consistent with the regional findings of low‐temperature themochronology, emphasizing the potential and significance to utilize channel profiles to infer the tectonic uplift history.

Temporal and Spatial Variations in Rock Uplift From River‐Profile Inversions at the Central Anatolian Plateau Southern Margin

“…All rights reserved. erosion are met (Pritchard et al, 2009;Roberts & White, 2010;Roberts et al, 2012a-b;Goren et al, 2014;Fox et al, 2014Fox et al, , 2015McNab et al, 2018;Gallen, 2018;Li et al, 2020;Ma et al, 2020).…”

“…A growing endeavor in tectonic geomorphology is to infer the rock‐uplift (or base‐level fall) history by inverting river profiles. Because the position of a point along a river profile is defined by the balance between rock uplift and erosion, and perturbations to the rock‐uplift rate tend to propagate upstream along the profile (e.g., Howard & Kerby, 1983; Tucker & Slingerland, 1996; Whipple et al., 1999), along‐channel variations in elevation can be inverted for a rock‐uplift history if certain testable assumptions about the mechanisms of fluvial erosion are met (Fox et al., 2014, 2015; Gallen, 2018; Goren et al., 2014; Li et al., 2020; Ma et al., 2020; McNab et al., 2018; Pritchard et al., 2009; Roberts, Paul et al, 2012; Roberts & White, 2010; Roberts, White, et al., 2012).…”

Bedrock river erosion through dipping layered rocks: quantifying erodibility through kinematic wave speed

“…Geomorphologists seek to extract geologic and climatic information from landscape morphology, and the conceptual framework of the stream power model (Howard and Kerby, 1983;Whipple and Tucker, 1999) has driven many such endeavors (Whipple et al, 2013). Indeed, as a representation of bedrock river incision, the stream power model has been used in many applications, including (1) identifying unrecognized earthquake risks (Kirby et al, 2003), (2) constraining the timing and extent of normal fault activity (Whittaker et al, 2008;Boulton and Whittaker, 2009;Gallen and Wegmann, 2017), (3) distinguishing between potential drivers of transient incision (Carretier et al, 2006;Gallen et al, 2013;Miller et al, 2013;Yanites et al, 2017), and (4) searching for spatial patterns in rock strength (Allen et al, 2013;Bursztyn et al, 2015). This last application is our focus here; to what extent can river morphology be used to detect spatial patterns in rock strength?…”

Assessment of tectonic activity based on the geomorphic indices in the middle reaches of the upstream of Jinsha River, China

“…The deformational mode between two units in the MRUJR, major active faults are shown in red colour, the grey arrow shows the clockwise rotation, the black thick arrow indicates the movement direction of the block, the “v” represents horizontal, the “h” represents vertical (modified from Ma et al, 2020; Pan & Shen, 2017; Xu et al, 2005; Zhou et al, 2005) [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]…”