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形成的，气候何时变化，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粮食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，那里的山脉由于频繁的大地震而迅速上升。在地震和强烈风暴期间，山坡容易发生山体滑坡，将大量沉积物送入河流。这些沉积物被运送到下游一个狭窄的、人口密集的沿海地带，在那里它在海平面上扩散形成一个三角洲。该项目记录了三角洲沉积物沉积的事件，并使用计算机模型来破译原因过程。这项研究将更好地约束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使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阶段代表性不足的群体提供教育服务。本项目重点构建一个以产沙量和岩石磁旋回地层数据为依据的源-汇景观演化模型（LEM），以探索准周期性和随机构造作用力是如何在沉积档案中被编码、粉碎、传播和保存的。由于流域面积相对较小（500平方公里），基岩均匀，并且已知气候和基准面变化的历史，该研究区域提供了无与伦比的自然实验，可以很好地扩展到LEM，探索低源存储系统中构造强迫的地貌和沉积反应。该项目测试了以下假设：从短地震周期到长长期抬升时间尺度，岩石抬升速率的变化：(1)影响系统的响应时间和自生周期，延长两者；(2)影响与周期性气候变化驱动的响应无关且独特的源的粒度和产沙量；(3)赋予汇独特的地层上覆和外覆几何形状、层厚、质地和岩石磁性变化。不同于周期性气候强迫和准周期性自生过程。该项目采用了一种建模策略，将源中的Landlab与汇中的Sedflux结合起来，以预测源沉积物通量的不稳定性，以及由此产生的盆地沉积结构，从而形成一个紧密相连的源-汇系统。根据岩石地层学、岩石磁旋回地层学、陆地宇宙生成核素（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沉积堆积速率，对LEM预测进行了评估。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.