A Geomorphic Examination of the Calabrian Forearc Translation

Abstract

The tectonic setting of the Mediterranean basin features several convergent plate boundaries with small, highly arcuate subduction zones. Slabs in several of these subduction zones are rapidly rolling back (e.g., Doglioni, 1993), resulting in diverse kinematics of upper plate deformation, including paired compression and extensional fronts in overlying forearcs (Elter et al., 1975). The Calabrian Peninsula in southern Italy represents one such forearc where only the extensional domain is exposed above sea level today (D' Agostino et al., 2011;Tortorici et al., 1995). Calabria is widely thought to have rifted away from Sardinia 6 Ma, and rapidly translated eastward as the leading edge of a wave of the backarc extension that opened the

Linear Inversion of Fluvial Topography in the Northern Apennines: Comparison of Base‐Level Fall to Crustal Shortening

“…Comparisons of rock erodibility between modeling studies are challenging because the values and units of K, θ, and k sn are interdependent. Considering differences in units, erodibility values calculated for sandstones and limestones lie within an order of magnitude range from erodibility values of similar lithologies calculated in a Mediterranean climate (Gallen & Fernandez-Blanco, 2021;Pavano & Gallen, 2021;Zondervan et al, 2020, and references therein). Our K (m 0.1 yr −1 ) values are limited to describe susceptibility to erosion in a uniform Mediterranean climate aggregated to the spatial resolution of each lithologic unit.…”

“…This linear inverse approach is predicated on the simple assumption that fluvial topography arises from the balance between uplift and vertical incision, and that an uplift history can be simulated to best reproduce observed fluvial topography. In the last several years, studies have resolved continuous uplift histories from the longitudinal profiles of extensive river networks (Gallen, 2018;Gallen & Fernandez-Blanco, 2021;Goren, 2016;Goren et al, 2014;Pavano & Gallen, 2021;Pazzaglia & Fisher, 2022). We apply the methods from Goren et al (2014) to reconstruct uplift histories but consider a variable erodibility parameter based on exposed rock-type, modified from Gallen (2018).…”

Integrated uplift, subsidence, erosion and deposition in a tightly coupled source‐to‐sink system, Pagliara basin, northeastern Sicily, Italy

“…We define the fluvial topography of the Pagliara catchment using a LiDAR data‐derived 2‐m resolution DEM and set a total of twelve experiments with 1000 Monte Carlo iterations, considering different upslope channel threshold areas ranging from 0.125 to 1 km 2 (Montgomery & Foufoula‐Georgiou, 1993; Wobus et al., 2006), variable concavity index, response time discretization and erosion rates. The inversion is carried out in MATLAB using codes developed for a related study in northern Sicily and Apennines and available on GitHub (Pavano & Gallen, 2021; https://github.com/sfgallen/Block_Uplift_Linear_Inversion_Models) and Zenodo (Fisher et al., 2022; https://zenodo.org/record/6503006#.Y8FY0tLMI9F), respectively. These codes work in concert with the MATLAB‐based TopoToolbox (Schwanghart & Scherler, 2014, 2017) and TAK (Forte & Whipple, 2019) software packages.…”

“…This is precisely the observation noted by Pavano et al (2016) and it argues that for catchments undergoing rapid base level fall (uplift) where system's response times are short, it may be possible for high-frequency eustasy to be preserved in the source topography (c.f. Gallen & Fernández-Blanco, 2021;Godard et al, 2013;Snyder et al, 2002), unless the DTM resolution is not suitable to capture the knickpoints' sizes (Pavano & Gallen, 2021). In contrast, from the perspective of the river channels in the source, there is an impulse of rapid base level fall at 250 ka at a rate approaching 2 mm/yr, followed by a deceleration to a minimum of ca.…”

“…Our data aligns with some recent studies that shows that rates of sediment accumulation are not dependent on changes in the rate of erosion during glacial–interglacial climate change (Ott et al., 2022). The age model allows us to then integrate the sedimentologic data with an inversion of the fluvial topography (Gallen, 2018; Goren et al., 2014; Pavano & Gallen, 2021; Pazzaglia & Fisher, 2022) that links uplift and erosion in the source to subsidence and deposition in the sink, and the construction of the sedimentary architecture of the Pagliara delta complex.…”