Cosmogenic nuclide methods for measuring long-term rates of physical erosion and chemical weathering

Understanding the evolution of geochemical and geomorphic systems requires measurements of long-term rates of physical erosion and chemical weathering. Erosion and weathering rates have traditionally been estimated from measurements of sediment and solute fluxes in streams. However, modern sediment and solute fluxes are often decoupled from long-term rates of erosion and weathering, due to storage or re-mobilization of sediment and solutes upstream from the sampling point. Recently, cosmogenic nuclides such as ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al have become important new tools for measuring long-term rates of physical erosion and chemical weathering. Cosmogenic nuclides can be used to infer the total denudation flux (the sum of the rates of physical erosion and chemical weathering) in actively eroding terrain. Here we review recent work showing how this total denudation flux can be partitioned into its physical and chemical components, using the enrichment of insoluble tracers (such as Zr) in regolith relative to parent rock. By combining cosmogenic nuclide measurements with the bulk elemental composition of rock and soil, geochemists can measure rates of physical erosion and chemical weathering over 1000- to 10,000-year time scales.     

Quaternary bedrock erosion and landscape evolution in the Sør Rondane Mountains, East Antarctica: Reevaluating rates and processes

Rates and processes of rock weathering, soil formation, and mountain erosion during the Quaternary were evaluated in an inland Antarctic cold desert. The fieldwork involved investigations of weathering features and soil profiles for different stages after deglaciation. Laboratory analyses addressed chemistry of rock coatings and soils, as well as ¹⁰Be and ²⁶Al exposure ages of the bedrock. Less resistant gneiss bedrock exposed over 1 Ma shows stone pavements underlain by in situ produced silty soils thinner than 40 cm and rich in sulfates, which reflect the active layer thickness, the absence of cryoturbation, and the predominance of salt weathering. During the same exposure period, more resistant granite bedrock has undergone long-lasting cavernous weathering that produces rootless mushroom-like boulders with a strongly Fe-oxidized coating. The red coating protects the upper surface from weathering while very slow microcracking progresses by the growth of sulfates. Geomorphological evidence and cosmogenic exposure ages combine to provide contrasting average erosion rates. No erosion during the Quaternary is suggested by a striated roche moutonnée exposed more than 2 Ma ago. Differential erosion between granite and gneiss suggests a significant lowering rate of desert pavements in excess of 10 m Ma^− 1. The landscape has been (on the whole) stable, but the erosion rate varies spatially according to microclimate, geology, and surface composition.     

A large landslide on the urban fringe of metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona

A granitic rock avalanche, one of the largest Quaternary landslides in Arizona outside the Grand Canyon with a volume of approximately 5.25 M m³ and a width a little under 0.5 km, ran 1 km from the eastern McDowell Mountains. With lateral levees and pressure ridges, the rock avalanche deposit displays many features found on classic sturzstroms. Failure occurred along a major joint plane paralleling the slope with a dip of 44°, when a major base level lowering event in the Salt River system would have undermined the base of the failed slope, and probably during a period of more moisture than normally available in the present-day arid climate. Failure at the subsurface weathering front highlights the importance of the dramatic permeability change between grussified regolith and relatively fresh bedrock. Rock varnish microlaminations (VMLs) dating, in concert with other geomorphic evidence, suggests that the rock avalanche deposit is slightly older than 500 ka. The rock vanish results also have important implications for sampling strategies designed to use cosmogenic nuclide to date Quaternary landslide deposits. Discovery of a large landslide in close proximity to the extending urban fringe of metropolitan Phoenix argues for a more careful analysis of landslide hazards in the region, especially where rapid development excavates bedrock at the base of steep mountain slopes and where the subsurface weathering front is near the surface.     

Retention of cosmogenic 3He in calcite

Cosmogenic ³He can be used to date a wide range of mineral phases because it is produced from all target elements and can be readily measured above atmospheric contamination. Calcite is a particularly attractive target mineral due to its natural abundance, large crystal size (>1 mm), and low He closure temperature (<70 °C), which limit non-cosmogenic ³He components (Copeland et al., 2007). However, several recent studies have shown that some calcite may not be retentive to helium, even under surface temperatures (Cros et al., 2014; Copeland et al., 2007). This study thus explores ³He retention and production in natural calcite samples at four different sites. Samples from two high elevation sites appear retentive to ³He over 10 kyr timescales, whereas two additional sites clearly suffer from diffusive loss of ³He. Step-degassing experiments suggest that diffusion in calcite is controlled by multiple diffusion domains, with an apparent activation energy of 25–27 kcal mol⁻¹. Although minor ³He loss is expected from the smallest diffusion domains, the observed kinetics cannot explain the poor retention at all sites. We thus propose that opaque (non-transparent) calcite may be more retentive due to the presence of imperfections in the crystal lattice. We conclude that ³He dating of calcite shows promise in some settings. However, because retention depends on crystallographic variability it must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis until robust criteria for retention can be identified.     

Late Quaternary Slip Rate of the Xiugou Segment,Eastern Kunlun Fault Zone

The Eastern Kunlun fault zone (EKLF) is a large left-lateral strike-slip fault, whose slip rate is meaningful to seismic hazard assessment and geodynamics of the Tibetan Plateau. Previous studies suggested that the late Quaternary average slip rate was stable and uniform (10~13 mm/a) in the central and western segment of the EKLF. But there were a few researches of accurate slip rate in the central segment on the EKLF. Therefore, we focused on an offset and well preserved alluvial fan from Xiugou basin, located in the east of Xidatan-Dongdatan, to make it clear. Moreover, we used high-resolution satellite images and digital elevation model extracted from SPOT7 stereo image pairs to restore the offset alluvial fan, and combined terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides method, including 13 quartz-rich samples from this fan surface, 1 quartz-rich sample from the main active channel bed and 1 ¹⁰Be depth profile from this fan edge to eliminate the ¹⁰Be concentration of inheritance accurately, with 1 optically stimulated luminescence sample to obtain the reliable age of this alluvial fan together. Referring to field observations, this alluvial fan was offset left-laterally by (1 862±103) m, and its age is (76.55±3.20)~(106.37±3.38) ka which can be determined through the actual geologic setting and improving chi-square test. Thus, we used the Monte Carlo method to obtain a left-lateral slip rate of (20.3+3.5/-2.3) mm/a with 68% confidence envelopes since the late Pleistocene in the Xiugou basin. As a result, combining with the results of previous studies, the left-lateral slip rate indicated that the obviously decreasing activity transferred from late Pleistocene to Holocene on the central segment of the EKLF.     

裂隙岩石介质中核素迁移的模型及其算子分裂、迎风、均衡格式

建立了放射性核素在裂隙岩石介质中迁移的双重介质模型,对模型的求解提出了一种新的数值方法—Galerkin有限元法与算子分裂、迎风、均衡格式相结合的新方法,给出了水质模型算子分裂、迎风、均衡格式的稳定性条件,且所得到的计算格式是非负的。最后通过对核素90Sr 100年、99Tc 1000年的预测计算,验证了本文所提方法的有效性和稳定性,并得出了一些有重要意义的结论。     

Cosmogenic nuclide measurements in southernmost South America and implications for landscape change

We measured in situ ¹⁰Be, ²⁶Al and³⁶Cl on glacial deposits as old as 1.1 Myr in the southernmost part of Patagonia and on northern Tierra del Fuego to understand boulder and moraine and, by inference, landscape changes. Nuclide concentrations indicate that surface boulders have been exposed for far less time than the ages of moraines they sit upon. The moraine ages are themselves constrained by previously obtained ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar ages on interbedded lava flows or U-series and amino acid measurements on related (non-glacial) marine deposits. We suggest that a combination of boulder erosion and their exhumation from the moraine matrix could cause the erratics to have a large age variance and often short exposure histories, despite the fact that some moraine landforms are demonstrably 1 Myr old. We hypothesize that fast or episodic rates of landscape change occurred during glacial times or near the sea during interglacials. Comparison with boulder erosion rates and exhumation histories derived for the middle latitudes of semi-arid Patagonia imply different geomorphic processes operating in southernmost South America. We infer a faster rate of landscape degradation towards the higher latitudes where conditions have been colder and wetter.     

青藏高原的剥蚀与构造抬升*

利用宇宙成因核素¹⁰ Be和²⁶ Al对西昆仑和可可西里北部地表基岩的剥蚀速率进行了测定,得到的结果是:西昆仑的平均剥蚀速率为12m/Ma, 可可西里北部的平均剥蚀速率为15m/Ma。裂变径迹和宇宙成因核素这两种手段所得到的平均剥蚀速率的时间尺度是不同的,前者得到的是几个至数十百万年的平均剥蚀速率,而后者得到的是十几至几十万年的平均剥蚀速率。比较通过这两种手段得到的青藏高原北部和中部的平均剥蚀速率可以发现其平均剥蚀速率从20Ma以来的100m/Ma以上减少到了最近几十万年以来的10m/Ma,我们认为这一剥蚀速率下降的趋势反映了青藏高原从中新世到第四纪晚期构造活动的减弱,据此推断青藏高原北部和中部的隆升应该主要发生在第四纪晚期之前,而不是在最近的几十万年。     

Dating alluvial deposits with optically stimulated luminescence, AMS C and cosmogenic techniques, western Transverse Ranges, California, USA

In an effort to better understand chronology of alluvial episodes in Cuyama Valley in the western Transverse Ranges of California, USA, we employed optically stimulated luminescence, radiocarbon and cosmogenic radionuclide surface exposure dating methods. Twenty-one optical dates ranging from 0.01 to 27 ka were obtained from exposures of late-Holocene axial-fluvial deposits, Pleistocene–Holocene alluvial-fan deposits, and axial-fluvial sands interbedded within a late Pleistocene alluvial fan. These were cross-checked with 37 AMS radiocarbon dates from charcoal and wood from within a and five ¹⁰Be surface exposure dates from boulders on alluvial-fan surfaces. The OSL results show generally good stratigraphic consistency, logical comparison with the radiocarbon and cosmogenic data, and appear to be the best method for accurate dating within deposits of this nature because suitable material is fairly easy to find in these environments. The radiocarbon data contained numerous “detrital ages”, but well-bedded lenses of apparently in situ or minimally transported charcoal provide reliable age estimates for the associated alluvium. Radiocarbon dating of detrital charcoal in the older alluvial fan deposits was problematic. Our cosmogenic surface-exposure dating was consistent stratigraphically and with our other data, but we were unable to determine its accuracy due to the limited number of samples and the possibility of inherited radionuclides and post-depositional erosion. In light of our results, we suggest that OSL dating using the latest analytical techniques combined with rigorous methods for estimation of paleodase is reliable and of increasing utility in otherwise difficult-to-date coarse alluvial environments in the southwestern United States and elsewhere.     

Interpretation of cosmogenic nuclides in meteorites on the basis of accelerator experiments and physical model calculations

Cosmogenic nuclides in extraterrestrial matter provide a wealth of information on the exposure and collision histories of small objects in space and on the history of the solar and galactic cosmic radiation. The interpretation of the observed abundances of cosmogenic nuclides requires detailed and accurate knowledge of their production rates. Accelerator experiments provide a quantitative basis and the ground truth for modeling cosmogenic nuclide production by measurements of the relevant cross sections and by realistic simulations of the interaction of galactic protons with meteoroids under completely controlled conditions, respectively. We review the establishment of physical model calculations of cosmogenic nuclide production in extraterrestrial matter on the basis of such accelerator experiments and exemplify this approach by presenting new experimental and theoretical results for the cosmogenic nuclide⁴⁴Ti. The model calculations describe all aspects of cosmogenic nuclide production and allow the determination of long-term solar and galactic cosmic ray spectra and a consistent interpretation of cosmogenic nuclides in extraterrestrial matter.