Macrogeomorphic evolution of the post‐Triassic Appalachian mountains determined by deconvolution of the offshore basin sedimentary record

A perplexing macrogeomorphic problem is the persistence of topography in mountain ranges that were initially formed by orogenic events hundreds of millions of years old. In this paper, we deconvolve the post‐Triassic macrogeomorphic history of a portion of one of these ranges, the central and northern Appalachians, using a well‐documented offshore isopach sedimentary record of the US Atlantic margin.

Topography is an important signature of tectonic, eustatic and/or geomorphic processes that produces changes in the erodible thickness of the crust (etc). We define etc as the total thickness of crust that would have to be consumed by erosion to reduce the mean elevation of a landscape to sea level. We use the term ‘source flux’, designated by ν˙, to describe the rate of change in etc attributed to deep‐seated geological processes such as crustal thickening, crustal extension, magmatic intrusions or dynamic flow in the mantle. In a mountain belt, the rate of change of mean elevation with respect to a base level, designated by ż′, can be represented as ż′ = c(ν˙ − kd z′ −; ėc ) −& hairsp;l˙, where kd is a proportionality constant relating the mean mechanical erosion rate to mean elevation, ėc is the mean chemcial erosion rate, c is a compensation ratio (held constant for Airy isostasy at 0.21) and l˙ is the rate of eustatic sea‐level change. This equation describes the sum of constructive source terms, two destructive erosion terms and a eustatic sea‐level term.

We use this simple linear equation to develop a landscape evolution model based on the concept of a unit response function. The unit response function is analogous to a unit hydrograph which describes the relationship between input (rainfall) and output (discharge) in a hydrological system. In our case, we solve for the general relationship between the source flux into the mountain belt and the erosional flux out of the belt. Offshore sediment volumes are used to determine the erosional flux. Drainage basin area is treated as either a constant (pinned drainage divide) or as increasing through time (migrating drainage divide). We use a third‐order polynomial fit to a global sea‐level curve to account for long‐term eustatically driven changes in etc and in drainage basin area. Chemical erosion is treated as a constant fixed at 5 m Myr⁻¹.

We consider two end‐member models. The first is a ‘tectonic’ model in which the source flux is allowed to vary while kd is assumed to be constant over geological time and equal to its mean Pleistocene value of about 0.07 Myr⁻¹. The second is an ‘erodibility’ model in which kd is allowed to vary, reflecting changes in climatic, climatic variables and rock‐type erodibility, while the source flux is held constant at zero. The ‘tectonic’ model reveals four important increases in the source flux, ranging from 200 to 2000 m Myr⁻¹ that occur over short (<10 Myr) time spans, followed by a protracted period (>25 Myr) where ν˙ drops below zero to values of −1000 to −6000 m Myr⁻¹. The ‘erodibility’ model produces a topography that decays in a step‐like fashion from an initial mean elevation that ranges between ∼1800 and 2300 m.

These models cannot unequivocally distinguish the relative importance of tectonic vs. climatic processes in the macrogeomorphic evolution of the post‐rift Appalachians, but they do provide some first‐order quantitative prediction about these two end‐member options. In light of existing stratigraphic, geological and thermochronological data, we favour the tectonic model because most of the events correlate well in time and form with known syn‐ and post‐rift magmatic events. Nevertheless, the most recent episode of increased sediment flux to the offshore basins during the Miocene remains difficult to explain by either model. Limited evidence suggests that this event may reflect asthenospheric flow‐driven uplift and the development of dynamically supported topography at a time when mechanical erosion rates were increasing in response to a cooling terrestrial climate.