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Abstract Advances in cosmogenic nuclide exposure dating have made moraines valuable terrestrial recorders of palaeoclimate. A growing number of moraine chronologies reported from the Central Andes show that tropical glaciers responded sensitively to past changes in precipitation and temperature over timescales ranging from 103 to 105 years. However, the causes of past glaciation in the Central Andes remain uncertain. Explanations have invoked insolation-modulated variability in the strength of the South American Summer Monsoon, teleconnections with the North Atlantic Ocean, and/or cooling in the Southern Hemisphere. The driver for these past climate changes is difficult to identify, partly due to a lack of dated moraine records, especially in climatically sensitive areas of the southern Central Andes. Moreover, new constraints are needed on precisely where and when glaciers advanced. We use cosmogenic 10Be produced in situ to determine exposure ages for three generations of moraines at the Sierra de Aconquija, situated at 27°S on the eastern flank of the southern Central Andes. These moraines record glacier advances at approximately 22 ka and 40 ka, coincident with summer insolation maxima in the sub-tropics of the Southern Hemisphere, as well as at 12.5 ka and 13.5 ka during the Younger Dryas and the Antarctic Cold Reversal, respectively. We also identify minor glaciation during Bond Event 5, also known as the 8.2 ka event. These moraines register past climate changes with high fidelity, and currently constitute the southernmost dated record of glaciation on the eastern flank of the Central Andes. To contextualise these results, we compile 10Be data reported from 144 moraines in the eastern Central Andes that represent past glacier advances. We re-calculate exposure ages from these data using an updated reference production rate, and we re-interpret the moraine ages by taking the oldest clustered boulder age (after the exclusion of outliers attributed to nuclide inheritance) as closest to the timing of glacier advance—an approach for which we provide empirical justification. This compilation reveals that Central Andean glaciers have responded to changes in temperature and precipitation. We identify cross-latitude advances in phase with insolation cycles, the last global glacial maximum, and episodes of strengthened monsoonal moisture transport including the Younger Dryas and Heinrich Stadials 1 and 2. Our results from the Sierra de Aconquija allow us to constrain the southerly limit of enhanced precipitation associated with Heinrich Stadials at ∼25°S. More broadly, our findings demonstrate at both local and regional scales that moraines record past climate variability with a fine spatial and temporal resolution. Highlights • New moraine ages are reported for the Sierra Aconquija, northwestern Argentina. • Existing moraine chronologies are compiled for the Central Andes. • Glaciers advanced at times of strengthened South American Summer Monsoon. • Reliable moraine ages record palaeoclimate with millennial-scale resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The temporal evolution of erosion over million-year timescales is key to understand the development of mountain ranges and adjacent fold-and-thrust belts. While models of orogenic wedge dynamics predict an instantaneous response of erosion to pulses of rock uplift, stream-power based models predict that catchment-wide erosion maxima significantly lag behind a pulse of rock uplift. Here, we explore the relationships between rock uplift, erosion, and sediment deposition in the Argentine Precordillera fold-and-thrust belt at 30°S. Using a combination of 10 Be-derived paleo-erosion rates, constraints on re-exposure using 26 Al/ 10 Be ratios, geomorphic observations and detrital zircon provenance, we demonstrate that the attainment of maximum upland erosion rates lags the maximum rate of deformation over million-year timescales. The magnitudes and causes of the erosional delays shed new light on the catchment erosional response to tectonic deformation and rock uplift in orogenic wedges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drainage-divide migration, controlled by rock-uplift and rainfall patterns, may play a major role in the geomorphic evolution of mountain ranges. However, divide-migration rates over geologic timescales have only been estimated by theoretical studies and remain empirically poorly constrained. Geomorphological evidence suggests that the Sierra de Aconquija, on the eastern side of the southern Central Andes, northwest Argentina, is undergoing active westward drainage-divide migration. The mountain range has been subjected to steep rock trajectories and pronounced orographic rainfall for the last several million years, presenting an ideal setting for using low-temperature thermochronometric data to explore its topographic evolution. We perform three-dimensional thermal-kinematic modeling of previously published thermochronometric data spanning the windward and leeward sides of the range to explore the most likely structural and topographic evolution of the range. We find that the data can be explained by scenarios involving drainage-divide migration alone, or by scenarios that also involve changes in the structures that have accommodated deformation through time. By combining new 10Be-derived catchment-average denudation rates with geomorphic constraints on probable fault activity, we conclude that the evolution of the range was likely dominated by west-vergent faulting on a high-angle reverse fault underlying the range, together with westward drainage-divide migration at a rate of several km per million years. Our findings place new constraints on the magnitudes and rates of drainage-divide migration in real landscapes, quantify the effects of orographic rainfall and erosion on the topographic evolution of a mountain range, and highlight the importance of considering drainage-divide migration when interpreting thermochronometer age patterns. • Orographic rainfall has likely persisted for millions of years at S. de Aconquija. • Thermochronology constrains drainage-divide migration rates over millions of years. • 10Be-derived catchment average denudation rates support active divide migration. • West-vergent thrusting combined with westward drainage-divide migration. • Thermochronologic data interpretation should consider lateral topographic shifts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]