A bottom-up control on fresh-bedrock topography under landscapes.

ABSTRACT: The depth to unweathered bedrock beneath landscapes influences subsurface runoff paths, erosional processes, moisture availability to biota, and water flux to the atmosphere. Here we propose a quantitative model to predict the vertical extent of weathered rock underlying soil-mantled hillslopes. We hypothesize that once fresh bedrock, saturated with nearly stagnant fluid, is advected into the near surface through uplift and erosion, channel incision produces a lateral head gradient within the fresh bedrock inducing drainage toward the channel. Drainage of the fresh bedrock causes weathering through drying and permits the introduction of atmospheric and biotically controlled acids and oxidants such that the boundary between weathered and unweathered bedrock is set by the uppermost elevation

SUBMITTER: Rempe DM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4020107 | biostudies-literature | 2014 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature