Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Earth science

Landscape inversion by stream piracy

Nature volume 520, pages 442–443 (2015)Cite this article

Subjects

A model suggests that active deformation in mountains causes river networks to constantly reorganize, providing an explanation for the paradoxical formation of almost flat surfaces high in craggy mountain ranges. See Letter p.526

For more than a century, Earth scientists' curiosity has been piqued by the existence of areas with low topographic relief, some nearly flat, perched high in rugged mountain ranges. One common explanation1 posits that these surfaces are relicts of large peneplains — low-relief features formed as the ultimate result of fluvial erosion — that were once close to sea level before being uplifted by mantle convection or plate tectonics and then dissected by rivers or streams. On page 526 of this issue, Yang et al.2 propose a very different mechanism, whereby low-relief surfaces in mountain landscapes form transiently as a result of the dynamic reorganization of river networks.

This is a preview of subscription content

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: Proposed origin of low-relief surfaces at high elevation.

Notes

  1. See all news & views

References

  1. Davis, W. M. Ann. Assoc. Am. Geogr. 1, 21–83 (1911).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Yang, R., Willett, S. D. & Goren, L. Nature 520, 526–529 (2015).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Kohn, M. J. (ed.) Paleoaltimetry: Geochemical and Thermodynamic Approaches (Mineral. Soc. Am., 2007).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  4. Clark, M. K. et al. J. Geophys. Res. 111, F03002 (2006).

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Hoke, G. D., Liu-Zeng, J., Hren, M. T., Wissink, G. K. & Garzione, C. N. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 394, 270–278 (2014).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Liu-Zeng, J., Tapponnier, P., Gaudemer, Y. & Ding, L. J. Geophys. Res. 113, F04018 (2008).

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. Perron, J. T. & Royden, L. Earth Surf. Process. Landforms 38, 570–576 (2013).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Niemann, J. D., Gasparini, N. M., Tucker, G. E. & Bras, R. L. Earth Surf. Process. Landforms 26, 1317–1332 (2001).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Willett, S. D., McCoy, S. W., Perron, J. T., Goren, L. & Chen, C.-Y. Science 343, 1248765 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Hallet, B. & Molnar, P. J. Geophys. Res. 106, 13697–13709 (2001).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Clark, M. K. et al. Geology 33, 525–528 (2005).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Shen, Z.-K., Lü, J., Wang, M. & Bürgmann, R. J. Geophys. Res. 110, B11409 (2005).

    ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Gunnell, Y. et al. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 278, 208–218 (2009).

    ADS  CAS  Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Gubbels, T. L., Isacks, B. L. & Farrar, E. Geology 21, 695–698 (1993).

    ADS  Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jérôme Lavé is at the Centre de Recherches Pétrographiques et Géochimiques, CNRS, Vandoeuvre les Nancy 54501, France.,

    Jérôme Lavé

Authors
  1. Jérôme Lavé
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jérôme Lavé.

Related audio

Electronic supplementary material

Grounds for prosecution

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Lavé, J. Landscape inversion by stream piracy. Nature 520, 442–443 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/520442a

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/520442a

Further reading

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing