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Long-term patterns of hillslope erosion by earthquake-induced landslides shape mountain landscapes

Wang, J.; Howarth, J.D.; McClymont, E.L.; Densmore, A.L.; Fitzsimons, S.J.; Croissant, T.; Groecke, D.R.; West, M.D.; Harvey, E.; Frith, N.V.; Garnett, M.H.; Hilton, R.G.

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Authors

J. Wang

J.D. Howarth

S.J. Fitzsimons

T. Croissant

D.R. Groecke

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Martin West m.d.west@durham.ac.uk
Senior Analytical Experimental Officer

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Dr Erin Harvey erin.l.harvey@durham.ac.uk
Post Doctoral Research Associate

N.V. Frith

M.H. Garnett

R.G. Hilton



Contributors

Abstract

Widespread triggering of landslides by large storms or earthquakes is a dominant mechanism of erosion in mountain landscapes. If landslides occur repeatedly in particular locations within a mountain range, then they will dominate the landscape evolution of that section and could leave a fingerprint in the topography. Here, we track erosion provenance using a novel combination of the isotopic and molecular composition of organic matter deposited in Lake Paringa, New Zealand. We find that the erosion provenance has shifted markedly after four large earthquakes over 1000 years. Postseismic periods eroded organic matter from a median elevation of 722 +329/−293 m and supplied 43% of the sediment in the core, while interseismic periods sourced from lower elevations (459 +256/−226 m). These results are the first demonstration that repeated large earthquakes can consistently focus erosion at high elevations, while interseismic periods appear less effective at modifying the highest parts of the topography.

Citation

Wang, J., Howarth, J., McClymont, E., Densmore, A., Fitzsimons, S., Croissant, T., …Hilton, R. (2020). Long-term patterns of hillslope erosion by earthquake-induced landslides shape mountain landscapes. Science Advances, 6(23), Article eaaz6446. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz6446

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 18, 2020
Online Publication Date Jun 5, 2020
Publication Date Jun 3, 2020
Deposit Date Mar 19, 2020
Publicly Available Date Jun 21, 2020
Journal Science Advances
Publisher American Association for the Advancement of Science
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 6
Issue 23
Article Number eaaz6446
DOI https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz6446
Publisher URL https://advances.sciencemag.org/

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2020 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY).
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.





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