From basins to rivers: Understanding the revitalization and significance of top-down drainage integration mechanisms in drainage basin evolution

Hilgendorf, Zach; Wells, Greta; Larson, Phillip H.; Millett, Jason; Kohout, Melissa

doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2019.107020

Cited by 26 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 104 publications

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“…A wide range of additional uncertainties in interpretation exists, which will not be discussed in detail here, but it is clearly to be expected that the dates and spatial scales of fluvial evolution will themselves evolve in the next decades. If inferred connectivity timescales turn out to be much smaller than generally accessed here, that evidence will favor a greater role of top-down drainage evolution (Hilgendorf et al, 2020), by basin overtopping, than by headward erosion. The former proceeds more importantly over the surface than through subsurface hydrologic connections, which influence headward erosion.…”

Section: Uncertaintiesmentioning

confidence: 69%

Non-linear hydrologic organization

Hunt

Faybishenko

Ghanbarian

2021

Nonlin. Processes Geophys.

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Abstract. We revisit three variants of the well-known Stommel diagrams that have been used to summarize knowledge of characteristic scales in time and space of some important hydrologic phenomena and modified these diagrams focusing on spatiotemporal scaling analyses of the underlying hydrologic processes. In the present paper we focus on soil formation, vegetation growth, and drainage network organization. We use existing scaling relationships for vegetation growth and soil formation, both of which refer to the same fundamental length and timescales defining flow rates at the pore scale but different powers of the power law relating time and space. The principle of a hierarchical organization of optimal subsurface flow paths could underlie both root lateral spread (RLS) of vegetation and drainage basin organization. To assess the applicability of scaling, and to extend the Stommel diagrams, data for soil depth, vegetation root lateral spread, and drainage basin length have been accessed. The new data considered here include timescales out to 150 Myr that correspond to depths of up to 240 m and horizontal length scales up to 6400 km and probe the limits of drainage basin development in time, depth, and horizontal extent.

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Section: Uncertaintiesmentioning

confidence: 69%

Non-linear hydrologic organization

Hunt

Faybishenko

Ghanbarian

2021

Nonlin. Processes Geophys.

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“…5b and 8b). The importance of basin overfill for drainage integration has been inferred for natural extensional systems, for example the central Italian Apennines (Geurts et al, 2018(Geurts et al, , 2020 and various valley systems in the Basin and Range (e.g., Hilgendorf et al, 2020). The opposite trend towards isolation of basins also occurs in both rift topographies.…”

Section: Drainage Network Reorganizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contrasting geomorphic and stratigraphic responses to normal fault development during single and multi-phase rifting

Pechlivanidou¹,

Geurts²,

Duclaux³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Understanding the impact of tectonics on surface processes and the resultant stratigraphic evolution in multi-phase rifts is challenging, as patterns of erosion and deposition related to older phases of extension are overprinted by the subsequent extensional phases. In this study, we use a one-way coupled numerical modelling approach between a tectonic and a surface processes model to investigate topographic evolution, erosion and basin stratigraphy during single and multi-phase rifting. We compare the results from the single and the multi-phase rift experiments for a 5 Myr period during which they experience equal amounts of extension, but with the multi-phase experiment experiencing fault topography inherited from a previous phase of extension. Our results demonstrate a very dynamic evolution of the drainage network that occurs in response to fault growth and linkage and, to depocentre overfilling and overspilling. However, we observe profound differences between topographic and depocenter development during single and multi-phase rifting with implications for sedimentary facies development. Our quantitative approach, enables us to better understand the impact of changing extension direction on the distribution of sediment source areas and the syn-rift stratigraphic development through time and space.

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“…Depressions complicate algorithms for geomorphological and terrain analysis, as well as hydrological modeling. Many common methods route flow using only information about local gradients and enforce downgradient flow (O 'Callaghan and Mark, 1984;Mark, 1987;Freeman, 1991;Quinn et al, 1991;Holmgren, 1994;Tarboton, 1997;Seibert and McGlynn, 2007;Orlandini and Moretti, 2009;Peckham, 2013). As a result, flow entering a depression cannot leave; in an extreme case, this could cause a continent-scale river, such as the entire Mississippi, to disappear into a small depression.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computing water flow through complex landscapes – Part 2: Finding hierarchies in depressions and morphological segmentations

2020

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Abstract. Depressions – inwardly draining regions of digital elevation models – present difficulties for terrain analysis and hydrological modeling. Analogous “depressions” also arise in image processing and morphological segmentation, where they may represent noise, features of interest, or both. Here we provide a new data structure – the depression hierarchy – that captures the full topologic and topographic complexity of depressions in a region. We treat depressions as networks in a way that is analogous to surface-water flow paths, in which individual sub-depressions merge together to form meta-depressions in a process that continues until they begin to drain externally. This hierarchy can be used to selectively fill or breach depressions or to accelerate dynamic models of hydrological flow. Complete, well-commented, open-source code and correctness tests are available on GitHub and Zenodo.

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From basins to rivers: Understanding the revitalization and significance of top-down drainage integration mechanisms in drainage basin evolution

Cited by 26 publications

References 104 publications

Non-linear hydrologic organization

Non-linear hydrologic organization

Contrasting geomorphic and stratigraphic responses to normal fault development during single and multi-phase rifting

Computing water flow through complex landscapes – Part 2: Finding hierarchies in depressions and morphological segmentations

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