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

风、水

• 批准号: RGPIN-2020-05956
• 负责人: Schoenbohm, Lindsay
• 金额: $ 4.44万
• 依托单位: University of Toronto
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=746974
• 关键词: Wind; Water; Ice; How; Erosion

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.

随着构造板块的碰撞形成山脉，河流、冰川和风等环境因素将它们撕毁。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和刺激之前是这样，导致短暂的、不稳定的漂移或建立新的稳定形式。尽管进行了几十年的研究，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，鉴于高分辨率气候、植被和地形数据集的日益可获得性，岩石、隆起和侵蚀数据的不断增长的数据库，以及能够分析和模拟这些数据的高性能计算机，我们现在准备在我们对气候-构造相互作用和景观演变的理解上取得突破，这将对我们理解地质灾害和景观将如何应对未来的气候变化产生影响。这项由探索基金资助的研究将实现以下目标。(1)我和我的研究团队将开发一个全面的工具包，用于从地貌特征的形状(例如，山脉前缘的尖锐程度、沿该山脉的河流盆地的深度、在剖面和地图上的河流形状)来读取构造抬升速率，并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，从阿根廷和喜马拉雅地区的应用开始，评估气候和构造对景观的相对影响。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脉和风蚀在塑造阿根廷普纳高原方面的对比影响。由于冰川限于高海拔或纬度，而风蚀仅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对构造和气候扰动做出反应，这反过来将限制现代气候变化对加拿大和其他地区的影响。最后，它将在公平、多样化和包容性的环境中支持至少5名研究生和20名本科生的培训。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方面的培训。