The effect of erosion on palaeoclimatic and topographic corrections to heat flow

The increase of surface temperature following a recent period of glaciation lowers the heat flow at shallow depths. At greater depths, increase of heat flow above the steady-state value might be expected, reflecting lowered surface temperature during the glacial period itself. Thus a plot of the climatic perturbation to heat flow against depth should have a sigmate form. The fact that measurable negative and positive deviation in heat flow (measurable amplitude of the sigmate variation) has not been observed in some deep boreholes may be explained by taking into account the erosion which accompanies ice ages. Quite small amounts of erosion during the period of lowered surface temperature result in perturbations to heat flow which are nearly constant, or decrease smoothly with depth, damping the sigmate variation and rendering it undetectable. Measured heat flow in this situation is not strongly dependent on depth but is nevertheless significantly different from the steady-state value.Ignoring the effect of erosion on topographic corrections in regions which have been subjected to valley glaciation may result in large errors in heat flow estimates, particularly for shallow measurements, such as in lakes.