Coupled influence of tectonics, climate, and surface processes on landscape evolution in southwestern North America

Alireza Bahadori (), William E. Holt, Ran Feng, Jacqueline Austermann, Katharine M. Loughney, Tristan Salles, Louis Moresi, Romain Beucher, Neng Lu, Lucy M. Flesch, Christopher M. Calvelage, E. Troy Rasbury, Daniel M. Davis, Andre R. Potochnik, W. Bruce Ward, Kevin Hatton, Saad S. B. Haq, Tara M. Smiley, Kathleen M. Wooton and Catherine Badgley
Additional contact information
Alireza Bahadori: Columbia University in the City of New York
William E. Holt: Stony Brook University
Ran Feng: University of Connecticut
Jacqueline Austermann: Columbia University in the City of New York
Katharine M. Loughney: University of Georgia
Tristan Salles: University of Sydney
Louis Moresi: The Australian National University
Romain Beucher: The Australian National University
Neng Lu: The Australian National University
Lucy M. Flesch: Purdue University
Christopher M. Calvelage: Purdue University
E. Troy Rasbury: Stony Brook University
Daniel M. Davis: Stony Brook University
Andre R. Potochnik: Grand Canyon Conservancy Field Institute
W. Bruce Ward: e4sciences
Kevin Hatton: Stony Brook University
Saad S. B. Haq: Purdue University
Tara M. Smiley: Stony Brook University
Kathleen M. Wooton: Stony Brook University
Catherine Badgley: University of Michigan

Nature Communications, 2022, vol. 13, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: Abstract The Cenozoic landscape evolution in southwestern North America is ascribed to crustal isostasy, dynamic topography, or lithosphere tectonics, but their relative contributions remain controversial. Here we reconstruct landscape history since the late Eocene by investigating the interplay between mantle convection, lithosphere dynamics, climate, and surface processes using fully coupled four-dimensional numerical models. Our quantified depth-dependent strain rate and stress history within the lithosphere, under the influence of gravitational collapse and sub-lithospheric mantle flow, show that high gravitational potential energy of a mountain chain relative to a lower Colorado Plateau can explain extension directions and stress magnitudes in the belt of metamorphic core complexes during topographic collapse. Profound lithospheric weakening through heating and partial melting, following slab rollback, promoted this extensional collapse. Landscape evolution guided northeast drainage onto the Colorado Plateau during the late Eocene-late Oligocene, south-southwest drainage reversal during the late Oligocene-middle Miocene, and southwest drainage following the late Miocene.

Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31903-2

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