Wind, Water & Ice: How Erosion Interacts with Climate and Tectonics to Shape the Landscape

当地壳板块碰撞形成山脉时，河流、冰川和风等环境因素又将它们推倒。气候和构造的这种相互作用是非常平衡的，导致景观是稳定的，至少在它们被构造或气候扰动戳到之前是如此，导致短暂的，不稳定的漂移或建立新的稳定形式。尽管进行了数十年的研究，但事实证明，气候和构造对景观的相对影响是难以捉摸的。然而，随着高分辨率气候、植被和地形数据集的可用性不断增加，岩石、隆起和侵蚀数据的数据库不断增长，以及能够分析和建模这些数据的高性能计算机的出现，我们现在正准备在我们对气候-构造相互作用和景观演化的理解上取得突破，对我们理解地质灾害以及景观如何应对未来气候变化的影响。 由这项发现补助金资助的研究将解决以下目标。(1)我和我的研究团队将开发一个全面的工具包，用于从景观特征的形状阅读构造抬升速率（例如，山脉前缘的尖锐度、沿着山脉的流域深度、河流在剖面图和地图视图中的形状），在安第斯山脉和加拿大落基山脉测试我们的方法。(2)我们将开发一个统计模型来评估气候和构造对景观的相对影响，从阿根廷和喜马拉雅山的应用开始。该模型将解决比较具有不同空间分辨率或覆盖范围的数据集的挑战，并明确考虑数据集的时间和空间尺度。最后，（3）我们将研究冰川在塑造喜马拉雅山和风蚀在塑造阿根廷普纳高原的对比影响。由于冰川局限于高海拔或高纬度地区，风蚀局限于具有特殊大气条件的干旱地区，因此可以利用其独特的足迹来评估气候对山脉演变的影响。 我们的工作将开发可供其他研究人员使用的工具，以了解地球上任何地方甚至其他行星上的景观演变。它将帮助我们了解河流和冰川如何应对构造和气候扰动，这反过来又将限制加拿大及其他地区现代气候变化的影响。最后，它将支持至少5名研究生和20名本科生在公平，多元化和包容性的环境中进行培训。学生将获得与现代经济高度相关的技能，包括地理信息系统（GIS），数值和统计建模，数字插图，数据分析以及口头和书面交流的培训。

As tectonic plates collide to build mountains, environmental agents like rivers, glaciers and wind tear them back down. This interplay of climate and tectonics is remarkably balanced, resulting in landscapes that are stable at least that is until they are poked and prodded by tectonic or climatic perturbations, resulting in brief, unstable excursions or the establishment of new stable forms. Unravelling the relative impact of climate and tectonics on the landscape has proven elusive despite decades of study. However, given the increasing availability of high-resolution climate, vegetation and topographic datasets, a growing database of rock, uplift, and erosion data, and high-powered computers capable of analyzing and modeling these data, we are now poised for a breakthrough in our understanding of climate-tectonic interactions and landscape evolution, with impacts for our understanding of geologic hazards and how the landscape will respond to future climate change. Research funded by this Discovery Grant will address the following objectives. (1) My research team and I will develop a comprehensive toolkit for reading tectonic uplift rate from the shape of features of the landscape (e.g., the sharpness of the front of a mountain range, the depth of river basins along that range, the shape of rivers in profile and map view), testing our methods in the Andes and Canadian Rockies. (2) We will develop a statistical model to evaluate the relative impact of climate and tectonics on the landscape, starting with applications in Argentina and the Himalaya. This model will address the challenges of comparing datasets that have different spatial resolution or coverage, and explicitly consider the temporal and spatial scale of datasets. Finally, (3) we will examine the contrasting impact of glaciers in shaping the Himalaya and wind erosion in sculpting the Puna Plateau in Argentina. Because glaciers are restricted to high altitude or latitude and wind erosion is limited to arid regions with particular atmospheric conditions, their unique footprints can be leveraged to assess the influence of climate on mountain range evolution. Our work will develop tools that can be used by other researchers to understand landscape evolution anywhere on Earth or even on other planets. It will help us understand how rivers and glaciers respond to tectonic and climatic perturbations, which in turn will constrain the impacts of modern climate change in Canada and beyond. Finally, it will support the training of at least 5 graduate students and 20 undergraduate students in an equitable, diverse, and inclusive environment. Students will gain skills highly relevant to the modern economy, including training in geographic information systems (GIS), numerical and statistical modeling, digital illustration, data analysis, and oral and written communication.