Geomorphology articles within Nature Geoscience

Featured

  • Commentary |

    The New Horizons mission has revealed Pluto and its moon Charon to be geologically active worlds. The familiar, yet exotic, landforms suggest that geologic processes operate similarly across the Solar System, even in its cold outer reaches.

    • Paul Schenk
    •  & Francis Nimmo

  • News & Views |

    Liquid water on Mars may be an agent of surface change, but it is unstable under the thin atmosphere. Experiments suggest water percolating though Martian hillslopes ejects sediment as it boils under the low pressure, and modifies the landscape.

    • Wouter A. Marra

  • News & Views |

    Coastlines above subduction zones slowly emerge from the sea despite repeated drowning by great, shallow earthquakes. Analysis of the Chilean coast suggests that moderate-to-large, deeper earthquakes may be responsible for the net uplift.

    • Rich Briggs

  • Article |

    Coastlines above subduction zones often uplift over geological timescales. Analysis of landscape evolution and seismicity at the central Andean margin suggests that earthquakes on the deep plate interface help build up coastal topography.

    • Daniel Melnick

  • Article |

    Some rockfalls occur without obvious triggers such as seismicity or freeze–thaw conditions. Temperature and deformation patterns on a granite cliff suggest that cyclical thermal forcing can progressively open fractures and trigger rockfalls.

    • Brian D. Collins
    •  & Greg M. Stock

  • News & Views |

    Martian gullies have been seen as evidence for past surface water runoff. However, numerical modelling now suggests that accumulation and sublimation of carbon dioxide ice, rather than overland flow of liquid water, may be driving modern gully formation.

    • Colin Dundas

  • Article |

    Gullies on Mars have been linked to possible flowing water, but are most active when seasonal CO2 ice is defrosting. Numerical modelling suggests that CO2 ice sublimation can induce debris flows consistent with observations of martian gullies.

    • C. Pilorget
    •  & F. Forget

  • Letter |

    Plate tectonic motions can influence biological systems. Numerical modelling of the topographic evolution of New Zealand, combined with fish phylogenetic analyses suggest mountain growth directly influenced biological diversification.

    • Dave Craw
    • , Phaedra Upton
    •  & Jonathan M. Waters

  • News & Views |

    Ice streams transport ice rapidly from the interior of the Antarctic ice sheet to the coast. An analysis of surface flow convergence suggests that ice flow and geometry are intricately linked within these ice streams.

    • O. V. Sergienko

  • Letter |

    Ice streams control the discharge of ice from the interior of the Antarctic Ice Sheet to the coast. A map of flow convergence suggests that ice-stream flow is subject to a mechanical regulation that limits flow-orthonormal strain rates.

    • Felix S. L. Ng

  • Letter |

    Alpine topography in Europe has been shaped by recent glaciations. Cosmogenic dating of summits in Svalbard suggest that Arctic alpine topography is a million years old and that subsequent glaciations have preserved rather than eroded the landscape.

    • Endre F. Gjermundsen
    • , Jason P. Briner
    •  & Anne Hormes

  • News & Views |

    Braided channels are rare on ocean floors, but abundant on land. Experiments and theory suggest that deeper flows and rapid overbank deposition restrict braiding in underwater rivers relative to their terrestrial counterparts.

    • Jeff Peakall

  • Letter |

    Braided channels are rare in submarine environments, yet common in fluvial systems. Laboratory experiments suggest that the formation mechanisms are the same, but submarine channels are typically not wide enough to promote braiding.

    • Brady Z. Foreman
    • , Steven Y. J. Lai
    •  & Chris Paola

  • Commentary |

    Natural landscapes are shaped by frequent moderate-sized events, except for the rare catastrophe. Human modifications to the Earth's surface are, compared with natural processes, increasingly catastrophic.

    • Richard Guthrie

  • News & Views |

    It is intuitive, but evidence that high levels of precipitation increase erosion rates has been elusive. The ages of exposed porphyry copper deposits reveal that rocks emplaced at depth travel to the surface faster where precipitation rates are high.

    • Jane K. Willenbring

  • Editorial |

    Research on the Solar System's planets has moved beyond fly-by science. Long-term observations of planetary bodies can yield insights as the days, seasons and years pass.

  • News & Views |

    Titan's equatorial dunes seem to move in the opposite direction to the prevailing easterly winds. Infrequent methane storms at Titan's low latitudes may briefly couple surface winds to fast westerlies above, dominating the net movement of sand.

    • Claire Newman

  • Letter |

    Titan’s equatorial dunes propagate eastwards, whereas Titan’s surface winds blow towards the West. Atmospheric simulations suggest that tropical methane storms generate strong eastward gusts that may dominate sand transport on Titan’s surface.

    • Benjamin Charnay
    • , Erika Barth
    •  & Antoine Lucas

  • News & Views |

    Flowing water shapes most of Earth's canyons, obscuring the contributions of other erosional mechanisms. A comparison of adjacent canyons with and without wind shielding shows that wind can amplify canyon incision on windblown Earth and Mars.

    • J. Taylor Perron

  • Letter |

    Water is considered the primary agent that erodes and shapes bedrock canyons. Analyses of canyon morphology in the central Andes suggest that abrasion by wind can amplify canyon incision and reshape canyons on Earth—and possibly on Mars.

    • Jonathan P. Perkins
    • , Noah J. Finnegan
    •  & Shanaka L. de Silva

  • Letter |

    Linear sand dunes on equatorial Titan are shaped by winds. The morphologies of smaller dunes that have been reoriented with respect to the linear dune crests suggest that winds shift with long-term orbitally driven climate cycles on Titan.

    • Ryan C. Ewing
    • , Alex G. Hayes
    •  & Antoine Lucas

  • News & Views |

    Temporal variations in coarse river deposits are often attributed to climate change. Cosmogenic nuclide concentrations of river cobbles suggest that climate plays a subordinate role to earthquake-induced landslides in producing coarse sediments in arid Peru.

    • Nathan A. Niemi

  • Letter |

    The majority of basaltic volcanism on the Moon occurred more than 3 billion years ago. Small mounded formations on the lunar nearside may be products of basaltic eruptions less than 100 million years ago, suggesting a long decline of magmatic activity.

    • S. E. Braden
    • , J. D. Stopar
    •  & H. Hiesinger

  • News & Views |

    Shorelines are vulnerable to the destructive waves and water levels of increasingly frequent extreme storm events. Wave tank experiments demonstrate that salt marsh vegetation dissipates wave energy and withstands extreme storm conditions.

    • Sergio Fagherazzi

  • Letter |

    Salt marshes protect coastlines against waves. Wave flume experiments show that marsh vegetation causes substantial wave dissipation and prevents erosion of the underlying surface, even during extreme storm surge conditions.

    • Iris Möller
    • , Matthias Kudella
    •  & Stefan Schimmels

  • Letter |

    Wrinkle structures in ancient sedimentary environments are enigmatic. Wave-tank experiments suggest that wrinkle structures are shaped by microbial mat fragments that are moved by waves over sandy-bed surfaces, and thus are morphological biosignatures.

    • G. Mariotti
    • , S. B. Pruss
    •  & T. Bosak

  • News & Views |

    The topography of the Earth's surface can be read as an archive of past climatic and tectonic upheavals. Field data reveal how a bedrock gorge may be erased within a human lifetime, taking with it the evidence of a major earthquake.

    • Leonard S. Sklar

  • Article |

    Narrow river gorges are often short-lived features. Images of a bedrock gorge in Taiwan, which was carved after 1999, reveal rapid widening where the upstream floodplain meets the gorge, an erosional front that propagates downstream as the gorge is erased.

    • Kristen L. Cook
    • , Jens M. Turowski
    •  & Niels Hovius

  • News & Views |

    Sandstone arches and other striking landforms are the showpieces of national parks around the globe. Experiments and numerical analyses show that they result from a self-organization process that involves vertical load, wind erosion and grain locking.

    • Chris Paola

  • Letter |

    The formation and preservation of sandstone landforms such as pillars and arches is enigmatic. Experiments and numerical modelling show that load-bearing material weathers more slowly, and thus the internal stress field can shape and stabilize sandstone landforms.

    • Jiri Bruthans
    • , Jan Soukup
    •  & Jaroslav Rihosek

  • Letter |

    Topographic relief continued to develop in the Appalachian Mountains, eastern USA, long after the tectonic forces that created the range had become inactive. Numerical modelling and reconstructions of sediment deposition in the Gulf of Mexico suggest that the topographic relief was rejuvenated by subsidence-induced differential erosion caused by sinking of the subducted Farallon slab in the underlying mantle.

    • Lijun Liu

  • News & Views |

    The origins of topographic relief are challenging to disentangle. Modelling shows that differential isostatic rebound due to erosion of rocks of variable density may influence topography, inspiring a fresh look at topographic highs in landscapes.

    • Rebecca M. Flowers

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