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Abstract: In many transport-limited environments, morphology, pedogenic iron and clay content provide a basis for estimating the exposure age of soils and associated landforms. We measured citrate-buffered dithionite (CBD)-extractable Fe (Fed) and clay concentration in fresh rock, saprolite, morainal and colluvial materials, and soil horizons from stable surfaces and hillslopes in the Colorado Front Range. Fresh igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks contain <1% Fed and 1 to 5% clay. As bedrock and surficial deposits age, Fed and clay accumulate from weathering and dustfall. Late Holocene regolith at warm, dry sites contains small amounts of Fed and clay, but relatively moist soils developed on early Holocene cirque deposits contain as much as 1.5% Fed and 8% clay. Concentrations and total profile accumulation of Fed and clay increase with age in soils developed on stable surfaces of glacial deposits as old as ~130kyr. On stable sites, Fed and clay accumulation from weathering and dust is ~0.02gcm−2 kyr−1 and ~0.2gcm−2 kyr−1, respectively. We used the Fed and clay inventory in soil profiles at dated, stable Front Range surfaces to calculate accumulation functions, which allowed us to estimate soil age at hillslope sites. Heterogeneous parent material, particularly on hillslopes, and climate-related effects add to variability in measured relations. Mobile regolith in Gordon Gulch, one of the Boulder Creek Critical Zone Observatory (CZO) catchments, yields profile ages from about 0.5 to 5×104 yr, comparable to values measured using other techniques. Calculated profile ages are older on a north- vs. south-facing slope and increase from the drainage divide to the footslope. Ages calculated for stabilized colluvium and well-developed buried profiles at nearby hillslope sites (Lefthand, Ward and Rollinsville) suggest that these soils have stabilized over periods >105 yr. In the absence of radiometric ages, the accumulation of Fed and clay in soils on stable sites and hillslopes provides a useful, local chronofunction for 103 to ~3×105 yr. Local footslope thickening of mobile regolith, buried soils, and areas of Fed- and clay-rich stabilized colluvium suggest that steady-state models of hillslope regolith must be modified to account for observed soil properties. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Granitic regolith, developed in the Boulder Creek catchment and adjacent areas, records a history of deep weathering, some of which may predate Quaternary time. Field and well-log measurements of weathering, chemical denudation and rates of erosion derived from 10Be cosmogenic radionuclide (CRN) data help to quantify rates of landscape change in the post-orogenic Rocky Mountains. The density of oxidized, fractured bedrock ranges from 2.7 to about 2.2 g cm−3, saprolite and grus have densities between ∼2.0 and 1.8 g cm−3, and 30 soil samples averaged 1.6±0.2 g cm−3. Highly weathered regolith in ∼540 wells averages ∼3.3 m thick, mean depth to bedrock in 1661 wells is ∼7 m, and the weathered thickness exceeds 10 m in relatively large local areas east of the late Pleistocene glacial limit. Thickness of regolith shows no simple relationship to rock type or structure, local slope, or distance from channels. Catchments in the vicinity of the Boulder Creek have an average CRN erosion rate of 2.2±0.7 cm kyr−1 for the past 10,000 to 40,000 yr. Annual losses of cations and SiO2 vary from about 2 to 5 g m−2 over a runoff range of 10 to nearly 160 cm. Using measured rates in simple box models shows that if a substantial fraction of void space is created by volume expansion in the weathering rock materials, ∼7 m of weathered rock materials could form in as little as 230 kyr. If density loss results mainly from chemical denudation and some volume expansion, however, the same weathering profile would take >1340 kyr to form. Rates of erosion measured by CRN could be balanced by the rate of soil formation from saprolite if the annual solute loss from soil is 2.0 g m−2 and 70% of the density decrease from saprolite to grus and soil results from strain. Saprolite, however, forms from oxidized bedrock at a far slower rate and rates of saprolite formation cannot balance soil and grus losses to erosion. The zone of thick weathered regolith is likely an eroding relict landscape. The undulating surface marked by relatively low relief and tors is not literally a topographic surface of Eocene, Oligocene or Miocene age unless it was covered with deposits that were removed in Pliocene or Quaternary time. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]