Basin Research - Volume 25, Issue 6, 2013

The study of the Las Tunas River incisions, located in the eastern Andean foreland front (3320’ S in Argentina), provides new clues for the interpretation of deep piedmont entrenchments. Both the Las Tunas mountain catchment and its piedmont are strongly entrenched with maximal incision of over 100 m at the mountain front. Three main terrace levels are well exposed and are labelled T1, T2 and T3 from the youngest to the oldest. We combined geological and geomorphological field observations, kinematic GPS data, satellite data and aerial photos with geochronological and analysis to provide a detailed description of terrace organization and a discussion of the evolution of the Las Tunas landscape. The surprisingly constant concentrations in surface layers as deep as 1.5 m show that gently dipping alluvial surfaces can be continuously and deeply mixed. Our data show a first period of deposition (Mesones Fm) before 0.85 Myr (minimum T3 age), followed by deep erosion and a second sedimentation period (Las Tunas Fm) that includes a ca. 0.6 Myr ash deposit. T2 and T1 are inset in the Las Tunas Fm and were abandoned ca. 15–20 kyr ago. The similar ages for T2 and T1 show that post‐20 kyr entrenchment occurred very rapidly. Despite Quaternary deformation in the Las Tunas piedmont, terrace entrenchment is best explained by paleo‐climatic changes. The terrace organization reveals that the erosion‐sedimentation phases affected the entire system from the piedmont toe to 10 km upstream of the mountain front. Finally, contrary to the neighbouring more deeply incised Diamante River system, where late Quaternary piedmont uplift is more likely to have been a factor causing incision, the more stable Las Tunas system provides an incomplete geomorphological record of Pleistocene and Holocene climate variations. We suggest that climate variations are better recorded in uplifting piedmonts than in stable ones, where the magnitude of incision and sedimentation and the fact that they occur repeatedly at the same elevation can erase a large part of the record.

Depositional models of ancient lakes in thin‐skinned retroarc foreland basins rarely benefit from appropriate Quaternary analogues. To address this, we present new stratigraphic, sedimentological and geochemical analyses of four radiocarbon‐dated sediment cores from the Pozuelos Basin (PB; northwest Argentina) that capture the evolution of this low‐accommodation Puna basin over the past ca. 43 cal kyr. Strata from the PB are interpreted as accumulations of a highly variable, underfilled lake system represented by lake‐plain/littoral, profundal, palustrine, saline lake and playa facies associations. The vertical stacking of facies is asymmetric, with transgressive and thin organic‐rich highstand deposits underlying thicker, organic‐poor regressive deposits. The major controls on depositional architecture and basin palaeogeography are tectonics and climate. Accommodation space was derived from piggyback basin‐forming flexural subsidence and Miocene‐Quaternary normal faulting associated with incorporation of the basin into the Andean hinterland. Sediment and water supply was modulated by variability in the South American summer monsoon, and perennial lake deposits correlate in time with several well‐known late Pleistocene wet periods on the Altiplano/Puna plateau. Our results shed new light on lake expansion–contraction dynamics in the PB in particular and provide a deeper understanding of Puna basin lakes in general.

Despite abundant data on the early evolution of the Central Alps, the latest stage exhumation history, potentially related to relief formation, is still poorly constrained. We aim for a better understanding of the relation between glaciation, erosion and sediment deposition. Addressing both topics, we analysed late Pliocene to recent deposits from the Upper Rhine Graben and two modern river sands by apatite fission‐track and (U‐Th‐Sm)/He thermochronology. From the observed age patterns we extracted the sediment provenance and paleo‐erosion history of the Alpine‐derived detritus. Due to their pollen and fossil record, the Rhine Graben deposits also provide information on climatic evolution, so that the erosion history can be related to glacial evolution during the Plio‐Pleistocene. Our data show that Rhine Graben deposits were derived from Variscan basement, Hegau volcanics, Swiss Molasse Basin, and the Central Alps. The relations between glaciation, Alpine erosion, and thermochronological age signals in sedimentary rocks are more complex than assumed. The first Alpine glaciation during the early Pleistocene did not disturb the long‐term exhumational equilibrium of the Alps. Recent findings indicate that main Alpine glaciation occurred at ca. 1 Ma. If true, then main Alpine glaciation was coeval with an apparent decrease of hinterland erosion rates, contrary to the expected trend. We suggest that glaciers effectively sealed the landscape, thus reducing the surface exposed to erosion and shifting the area of main erosion north toward the Molasse basin, causing sediment recycling. At around 0.4 Ma, erosion rates increased again, which seems to be a delayed response to main glaciation. The present‐day erosion regime seems to be dominated by mass‐wasting processes. Generally, glacial erosion rates did not exceed the pre‐glacial long‐term erosion rates of the Central Alps.

Salt rim synclines contain important hydrocarbon and coal resources in central Europe. The Schöningen salt rim syncline is filled with >300 m of Early to Middle Eocene unconsolidated clastics with interbedded lignitic coal seams that are mined at the surface. In this study, 357 lithologic logs are integrated with measured outcrop sections and paleo‐botanical data to interpret the depositional environments and sequence stratigraphic framework of the rim syncline fill. As salt withdrew, it generated an elongate mini‐basin that mimicked an incised valley. The sustained accommodation and slow broadening of the syncline affected the stratigraphic architecture and contributed to the preservation of coal units. The clastic units in the syncline filled in seven depositional stages: (1) tidally influenced fluvial estuarine channels; (2) mixed tide‐ and wave‐ dominated estuaries; (3) prograding wave dominate deltas; (4) transgressive shoreline deposits; (5) braided fluvial channels; (6) estuaries; and (7) prograding tide‐dominated channels. The succession defines four 3rd order sequences and several higher order sequences that are possibly related to Milankovitch cycles. The higher order sequences are dominantly characterized by stacked transgressive cycles of thick, lowstand coals overlain by estuarine sands. The nearly continuous warm and wet Eocene climate was conducive to continuous peat production with a climatic overprint recorded in the mire type: ombrotrophic mires developed in wetter times and rheotrophic mires developed in relatively drier conditions pointing to the presence of orbitally controlled seasonality. Both mire types were impacted by the interplay of subsidence and base‐level. The continuous dropping of the mires below base‐level via subsidence protected the mires against erosion and may account for the absence of coals outside of the rim synclines in the region.

The Triassic Moenkopi Formation in the Salt Anticline Region, SE Utah, represents the preserved record of a low‐relief ephemeral fluvial system that accumulated in a series of actively subsiding salt‐walled mini‐basins. Development and evolution of the fluvial system and its resultant preserved architecture was controlled by the following: (1) the inherited state of the basin geometry at the time of commencement of sedimentation; (2) the rate of sediment delivery to the developing basins; (3) the orientation of fluvial pathways relative to the salt walls that bounded the basins; (4) spatially and temporally variable rates and styles of mini‐basin subsidence and associated salt‐wall uplift; and (5) temporal changes in regional climate. Detailed outcrop‐based tectono‐stratigraphic analyses demonstrate how three coevally developing mini‐basins and their intervening salt walls evolved in response to progressive sediment loading of a succession of Pennsylvanian salt (the Paradox Formation) by the younger Moenkopi Formation, deposits of which record a dryland fluvial system in which flow was primarily directed parallel to a series of elongate salt walls. In some mini‐basins, fluvial channel elements are stacked vertically within and along the central basin axes, in response to preferential salt withdrawal and resulting subsidence. In other basins, rim synclines have developed adjacent to bounding salt walls and these served as loci for accumulation of stacked fluvial channel complexes. Neighbouring mini‐basins exhibit different styles of infill at equivalent stratigraphic levels: sand‐poor basins dominated by fine‐grained, sheet‐like sandstone fluvial elements, which are representative of nonchannelised flow processes, apparently developed synchronously with neighbouring sand‐prone basins dominated by major fluvial channel‐belts, demonstrating effective partitioning of sediment route‐ways by surface topography generated by uplifting salt walls. Reworked gypsum clasts present in parts of the stratigraphy demonstrate the subaerial exposure of some salt walls, and their partial erosion and reworking into the fill of adjoining mini‐basins during accumulation of the Moenkopi Formation. Complex spatial changes in preserved stratigraphic thickness of four members in the Moenkopi Formation, both within and between mini‐basins, demonstrates a complex relationship between the location and timing of subsidence and the infill of the generated accommodation by fluvial processes.

The formation processes of the late Neogene sedimentary basins in Northern Hokkaido have been investigated on the basis of rock magnetism, structural geology and numerical modelling. Untilted site‐mean directions of remanent magnetization of the Wakkanai Formation, obtained from oriented core samples in Horonobe, suggest remarkable counterclockwise block rotation (ca. 70°) since the late Neogene. Uniform microscopic fabric of the siliceous sediments was inferred from the alignment of the principal axes of the anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS). After correction for tectonic rotation, the maximum axis of AMS, which reflects the sedimentary fabric of the dominant paramagnetic minerals, is in an E‐W direction, which is concordant with the influx direction of diatomaceous particles into the N‐S elongate sedimentary basins. The difference in the bulk initial magnetic susceptibility of the siliceous sediments of the Wakkanai Formation between the depocenter of the basin and its peripheral part implies that terrigenous non‐magnetic fraction has been sorted out during transportation of the detrital grains as gravity flows. As for the development mechanism of the N‐S elongate late Neogene basins in Northern Hokkaido, their depocenter arrangement and subsidence pattern indicates dextral motions upon a longitudinal fault zone along the Eurasian convergent margin. Dislocation modelling was adopted to explain vertical displacement and rotational motion around the study area and successfully restored the deformation pattern based on the assumption of dextral slip at a left‐stepping part of a strand of the transcurrent fault.