WPES Hosts Seminar w/ Dr. Frank Pazzaglia on Catchment Erosion in Eastern North America
Uplift history of the eastern North American margin from an inversion of fluvial topography
Dr. Frank Pazzaglia, Lehigh University
Wednesday Oct. 26 at Noon
This talk explores how the long term record of base level fall (rock uplift) is encoded in the steepness of river long profiles, and how the profiles of an entire catchment can be inverted to extract an uplift history. The Delaware River that drains the mid-Atlantic margin contains classic erosional landforms like wind and water gaps that speak to drainage adjustments to structure, and unsteady base level fall during the Cenozoic. A fluvial inversion of all of the channels in the Delaware catchment that accounts for variable rock type, indicates that base level fall was slow and steady at rates ~20 m/Myr pre-Miocene, but increased to ~60 m/Myr in the Miocene, and has been unsteady since then, including base level changes probably associated with glacio-eustatic and GIA processes. The Miocene pulse in base level fall is probably dynamic in nature and matches other records of sedimentation and erosion preserved on the Atlantic Coastal Plain.
Questions regarding the seminar: sean.m.smith@maine.edu
