Collaborative Research: TESPRESSO: Tectonic Encoding, Shredding, and PRopagation of Environmental Signals as Surface Observables

沉积物和沉积岩记录了山脉是如何建造的，何时气候变化，海平面如何波动，以及侵蚀、移动和沉积沉积物的过程。这些信息可以帮助我们了解现代地球表面过程、自然灾害以及对可持续食物和水资源至关重要的环境系统。研究这些过程的一个关键地点是西西里岛东北部的佩洛里塔尼山脉，由于大地震和频繁的地震，那里的山脉正在迅速上升。在地震和猛烈的暴风雨中，山坡都容易发生山体滑坡，将大量泥沙送入河流。这些沉积物被向下游输送到人口稠密的狭窄沿海地带，在那里展开，在海平面上形成一个三角洲。这个项目记录了三角洲的沉积事件，并使用计算机模型来破译成因过程。这项研究将更好地限制佩洛里塔尼山景观对地震、气候、山体滑坡、山洪暴发和海平面变化的反应。这项工作的结果将有助于让当地民众了解该地区的地质灾害。该项目为研究生、早期职业博士后研究人员提供支持，并向K-12级别代表性不足的群体提供教育推广。该项目重点是建立一个源汇景观演化模型(LEM)，以了解沉积物产量和岩石磁旋回地层学数据，以探索准周期和随机构造作用力如何编码、粉碎、传播和保存在沉积档案中。由于流域面积相对较小(500平方公里)，基岩均匀，以及已知的气候和基准面变化历史，该研究区提供了一个无与伦比的自然实验，很好地探索了低物源储量系统中地貌和沉积学对构造作用力的响应。该项目测试了以下假设：在短地震周期到长长期隆起时间尺度上岩石隆起速率的变化：(1)影响系统的响应时间和自生期，延长两者；(2)影响源的粒度和沉积物产量，独立于周期性气候变化的响应，并且是由周期性气候变化驱动的，并且是独一无二的；(3)在汇中产生独特的地层超覆和剥离几何形状、床层厚度、结构和岩石磁性变化，不同于周期性气候强迫和准周期性自生过程所带来的变化。该项目采用了一种建模策略，将源中的LandLab与汇中的Sed通量合并，以预测源沉积物通量中的不稳定以及由此产生的源-汇系统的盆地沉积结构。LEM预测是根据岩石地层学、岩石磁性旋回地层学、陆地宇宙成因核素(TCN)确定的现代和古侵蚀速率以及由光学发光确定的扇三角洲的沉积物堆积速率进行评估的。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Sediments and sedimentary rocks record how mountains are built, when climate changes, how sea level fluctuates, and the processes that erode, move, and deposit sediment. This information can inform our understanding of modern Earth surface processes, natural hazards, and environmental systems crucial to sustainable food and water resources. A key location to study these processes is in the Peloritani Mountains, northeastern Sicily, where the mountains are going up rapidly as a result of large and frequent earthquakes. Hillslopes are prone to landslides during both earthquakes and violent storms, sending large amounts of sediment into the rivers. This sediment is transported downstream to a narrow, densely-populated coastal strip, where it spreads out forming a delta at sea level. This project documents episodes of sediment deposition in the deltas and uses computer models to decipher the causative processes. This research will better constrain how the Peloritani Mountain landscape responds to earthquakes, climate, landslides, flash floods, and sea level variability. Results from this work will help inform the local populace on geologic hazards in the region. The project provides support for graduate students, early career post-doctoral researchers, and educational outreach to underrepresented groups at the K-12 level.This project focuses on the construction of a source to sink landscape evolution model (LEM) informed by sediment yield and rock-magnetic cyclostratigraphic data to explore how quasi-periodic and stochastic tectonic forcings are encoded, shredded, propagated, and preserved in sedimentary archives. With a relatively small drainage area ( 500 km2), uniform bedrock, and a known history of climate and base level variation, the study area offers an unparalleled natural experiment that scales well to a LEM exploring the geomorphic and sedimentologic responses to tectonic forcings in a system with low source storage. The project tests hypotheses that changes in rates of rock uplift on short earthquake cycles to long secular uplift time scales (1) impact the response time and the autogenic periods of the system, lengthening both, (2) impact the grain size and sediment yield of the source independent of, and unique to, responses driven by periodic climate change, and (3) impart unique stratal onlap and offlap geometries, bed thickness, textural, and rock-magnetic variations in the sink, distinct from those imparted by periodic climatic forcing and quasi-periodic autogenic processes. The project incorporates a modeling strategy that merges Landlab in the source to Sedflux in the sink in order to predict unsteadiness in the source sediment flux and the resulting basin depositional architecture for a tightly linked source-to-sink system. LEM predictions are evaluated against lithostratigraphy, rock-magnetic cyclostratigraphy, terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide (TCN)-determined modern and paleo-erosion rates, and sediment accumulation rates in fan deltas determined by optical luminescence.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.