COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: Geodynamic Response to Extension in Convergent Orogens

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9909102SelverstoneOrogenic processes at convergent plate boundaries involve surficial processes, possible extensional tectonics and uplift and exhumation of rocks in addition to the overall compressive tectonic setting. How these processes interact and are apportioned in most convergent margins is problematic. The research will investigate a well-developed trellis drainage pattern in the Alps that is thought to be a direct consequence of the extensional mechanism, with syn-convergent extension occurring normal to the convergent direction resulting in broadly folded foot walls and high angle brittle faults presumably created as the foot wall passes through a rolling hinge. Differential erosion exploits the lows in the folds and the high angle faults resulting in the observed trellis pattern. This project is a geomorphic, petrographic and structural study to test the concept of the origin of the trellis drainage pattern, and these data will be incorporated in a tectonic/geomorphic model. Results should help apportion rock exhumation to tectonic extension and fluvial erosion in this and other constructional setting.