Mid-Pleistocene climate transition drives net mass loss from rapidly uplifting St. Elias Mountains, Alaska.

ABSTRACT: Erosion, sediment production, and routing on a tectonically active continental margin reflect both tectonic and climatic processes; partitioning the relative importance of these processes remains controversial. Gulf of Alaska contains a preserved sedimentary record of the Yakutat Terrane collision with North America. Because tectonic convergence in the coastal St. Elias orogen has been roughly constant for 6 My, variations in its eroded sediments preserved in the offshore Surveyor Fan constrain a budget of tectonic material influx, erosion, and sediment output. Seismically imaged sediment volumes calibrated with chronologies derived from Integrated Ocean Drilling Program boreholes show that erosion accelerated in response to Northern Hemisphere glacial intensification (∼ 2.7 Ma) and that t

SUBMITTER: Gulick SP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4679047 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature