Quantifying fault response to enhanced climate-driven erosion using cosmogenic nuclides and geomechanical models

ongoing

Mountain topography embeds a signal of past climate-driven erosion and tectonic evolution. Numerical models are powerful tools to characterize this delicate interplay and outputs can be used as a framework to understand the current climate or forecast future fault behavior and earthquakes. To validate models of climate and tectonic interactions during mountain building requires high-resolution records of erosion rates, sedimentation rates, climate variability, and fault activity. However, sites with detailed Quaternary records of all these variables are rare, which hinders our ability to validate model outputs. A multi-system approach, using field data to calibrate models, is required to enhance the predictive power of models and their capacity to tackle major unresolved tectonic and climatic problems, like how climate-enhanced erosion affects rates of faulting. This project will: 1) develop cutting-edge, data-driven, geomechanical models that integrate tectonics, climate, and erosion during mountain building; 2) collect new field data (10Be boulder ages and high-resolution topographic data) to generate a high-resolution record of Quaternary fault activity in the Andean foreland and supplement this data with existing erosion rates, rock exhumation rates, and sedimentation records; and 3) calibrate and apply the models using the field data to quantify the extent that climate-driven erosion affects rates of tectonic processes. This project will push the boundaries of our understanding of how tectonic and climatic variables influence landscape evolution whilst developing data-driven geomechanical modelling techniques with powerful applications to widespread tectonic, climatic, and sedimentological processes. The project will also give the researcher experience in a pioneering modelling field, whilst fostering intra-European and global collaborations and helping the researcher achieve their career goal of becoming an independent academic in Europe.