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Talus flatirons (TFs) are morphostratigraphic markers of prior talus deposition that are now disconnected from the active hillslope. Three generations of TFs (TF1, TF2, TF3) exist flanking a Sonoran Desert inselberg, Rock Peak, in a welded tuff caprocks-controlled landscape bounded by pediments. TFs at Rock Peak enable estimation of slope retreat rates through the application of cosmogenic 10Be, optically stimulated luminescence dating, and catchment-wide denudation rates (CWDR). We estimate disconnection of TF1 on Rock Peak at 88.9 ± 7.8 ka (northern slope) and 29.1 ± 2.5 ka (southern slope). Rates of hillslope retreat measure between 311.6 mm·ka−1 (northern slope) and 728.5 mm·ka−1 (southern slope). Asymmetry in retreat rates is consistent with CWDR, with southern slopes denuding ∼1.5 times faster. The asymmetry is interpreted as the result of the southward structural dip of strata present (>10°). Denudation rates on the summit of Rock Peak (54.3 ± 19.4 mm·ka−1 welded tuff; 111.2 ± 15.3 mm·ka−1 sandstone conglomerate) support interpretation that removal of welded tuff caprock accelerates denudation of this landscape and amplifies the impact of the structural dip. Given this, we interpret that Rock Peak will evolve into a rounded residual hill as pediments flanking the inselberg lengthen through time, similar to landforms observed in the surrounding landscape where the welded tuff and underlying sedimentary caprocks are no longer present. Using the range of slope retreat rates from Rock Peak, we provide a first estimate for the length of time necessary for pediments to form via hillslope retreat in the Sonoran Desert. Key Words: caprock, landscape evolution, pediment association, talus flatiron, 10Be exposure dating.

Increased availability and resolution of remotely-sensed (RS) imagery of Earth's surface has greatly enhanced the precision, spatial extent, and temporal frequency at which we can analyze river channel migration and width changes. Despite a body of research identifying and quantifying sources of uncertainty inherent in such data, no framework has emerged to comprehensively quantify and handle uncertainty. Herein, we summarize and evaluate present best practices, test new approaches to quantify and handle uncertainty, and provide recommendations for future work using remotely-sensed measurements of river migration and width changes. While our research focuses on river systems, the principles and approaches are applicable to research delineating boundaries or using boundaries to measure changes: glacier retreat or advance, erosion or deposition along coastlines and lakeshores, changes in wetland extent, expansion or contraction of vegetation (e.g., deforestation), cliff retreat, sea level rise due to climate change, change in aeolian depositional systems, and anthropogenic/political boundary disputes. From our results, the following conclusions and recommendations arise: 1. Planform change measurements should span spatial intervals larger than coherent units of adjustment to avoid spatial autocorrelation. 2. Uncertainty in manual riverbank delineations is dominated by arbitrary user inconsistency rather than poor image quality (i.e., resolution, colour versus grayscale, year of acquisition) or environmental conditions (i.e., shadows and vegetation cover). 3. We recommend that digitizations follow the vegetated boundary that best approximates bankfull width, whenever possible, to avoid inconsistency along ambiguous reaches. 4. Using a spatially variable level of error detection (LoD) threshold improves the quantity and quality of retained measurements relative to a uniform LoD. 5. After applying a LoD threshold, we recommend first using expert discretion to manually classify any ‘nondetect’ measurements that qualify as ‘significant’ measurements of zero (i.e., no change actually occurred). 6. Subsequently, three methods may be used for handling the remaining nondetects; Kaplan-Meier (KM) and Maximum Likelihood Estimators (MLE). The specific approach chosen for handling nondetects is contingent upon each case, but can be guided and informed by descriptions and assumptions of each method, references to external resources, and results of our river-focused analyses. 7. Finally, we encourage a focus on improving the simplicity, generalizability, and open-source opportunities of tools and packages used for calculating river planform change and spatially variable uncertainty, thereby enabling a common platform to measure and compare results.

Our study adds to the Quaternary history of eolian systems and deposits in western Wisconsin, USA, primarily within the lower Chippewa River valley. Thickness and textural patterns of loess deposits in the region indicate transport by west-northwesterly and westerly winds. Loess is thickest and coarsest on the southeastern flanks of large bedrock ridges and uplands, similar in some ways to shadow dunes. In many areas, sand was transported up and onto the western flanks of bedrock ridges as sand ramps, presumably as loess was deposited in their lee. Long, linear dunes, common on the sandy lowlands of the Chippewa valley, also trend to the east-southeast. Small depressional blowouts are widespread here as well and often lie immediately upwind of small parabolic dunes. Finally, in areas where sediment was being exposed by erosion along cutbanks of the Chippewa River, sand appears to have been transported up and onto the terrace treads, forming cliff-top dunes. Luminescence data indicate that this activity has continued throughout the latest Pleistocene and into the mid-Holocene. Together, these landforms and sediments paint a picture of a locally destabilized landscape with widespread eolian activity throughout much of the postglacial period.

Although mountains represent a barrier to the flow of liquid water across our planet and an Earth of impenetrable mountains would have produced a very different geography, many rivers do cross mountain ranges. These transverse drainages cross mountains through one of four general mechanisms: antecedence—the river maintains its course during mountain building (orogeny); superimposition—a river erodes across buried bedrock atop erodible sediment or sedimentary rock, providing a route across what later becomes an exhumed mountain range; piracy or capture—where a steeper gradient path captures a lower gradient drainage across a low relief interfluve; and overflow—a basin fills with sediment and water, ultimately breaching the lowest sill to create a new river. This article reviews research that aids in identifying the mechanism responsible for a transverse drainage, notes a major misconception about the power of headward eroding streams that has dogged scholarship, and examines the transverse drainage at the ...

A paucity of research exists regarding the millennial-scale response of inland alluvial streams to abrupt base-level fall. Studies of modern systems indicate that, over short time scales, the response is a diffusion-like process of upstream-propagating incision. In contrast, evidence from the lower Chippewa River (LCR), located in the upper Midwest of the USA, suggests that autogenic controls operating over time scales of several millennia can overwhelm diffusion, resulting in incision that is prolonged and episodic. During the Last Glacial Maximum, the LCR drained the Chippewa Lobe of the Laurentide Ice Sheet to the glacial upper Mississippi River (UMR). As a meltwater stream, it aggraded and filled its valley with glacial outwash, as did its largest tributaries, which were also meltwater streams. Its nonglacial tributaries aggraded, too, filling their valleys with locally derived sediment. During deglaciation, the UMR incised at least twice, abruptly lowering the LCR's base level — ~ 15 m at 16 ka or earlier and an additional 40 m at ca. 13.4 ka. Each of these base-level falls initiated incision of the LCR, led by upstream migrating knickpoints. The propagation of incision has, however, been a lengthy process. The optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) ages of terrace alluvium indicate that, by 13.5 ka, incision had advanced up the LCR only 15 km, and by 9 ka, only 55 km. The process has also been episodic, resulting in the formation of fill-cut terraces (inferred from GPR surveys and exposures of terrace alluvium) that are younger and more numerous in the upstream direction. Autogenic increases in sediment load and autogenic bed armoring, the result of periodic tributary-stream rejuvenation and preferential winnowing of fines by the incising river, may have periodically caused knickpoint migration and incision to slow and possibly stop, allowing lateral erosion and floodplain formation to dominate. A decline in sediment flux from stabilizing incised tributary stream systems would have led to renewed knickpoint migration and incision when floods of sufficient magnitude to breach the channel armor occurred. Minimal floodplain development along the upper section of the present-day LCR, along with the channel morphology of an unstable wandering gravel-bed river immediately downstream from it, suggest that the river is still responding to the base-level falls that happened many millennia ago. The autogenic controls on the LCR's response to UMR incision are a direct consequence of the thick fills of noncohesive sediment that accumulated in its valley and the valleys of its tributary streams during the Late Wisconsinan, making the LCR a prime example of a former proglacial river that remains a paraglacial fluvial system.

Pediments of the Sonoran Desert in the United States have intrigued physical geographers and geomorphologists for nearly a century. These gently sloping bedrock landforms are a staple of the desert landscape that millions visit each year. Despite the long-lived scientific curiosity, an understanding of the processes operating on the pediment has remained elusive. In this study we revisit the extensive history of pediment research. We then apply geospatial, field, and laboratory cosmogenic 10Be nuclide dating and back-scattered electron microscopy methods to assess the pace and processes of landscape change on pediment systems abutting the Salt River in Arizona. Our study focuses on the Usery pediments linked to base-level fluctuations (river terraces) of the Salt River. Relict pediment surfaces were reconstructed with dGPS data and kriging methodologies utilized in ArcGIS—based on preserved evidence of ancient pediment surfaces. 10Be ages of Salt River terraces established a chronology of incision events,...

The Salt River and Verde River watersheds provide downstream metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, USA with much of its water supply, and this paper explains how these rivers integrated in an extensional tectonic setting. Near the end of the Pliocene, segments of the proto-Salt and proto-Verde watersheds of central Arizona consisted of local drainage networks supplying water and sediment into internally drained basins, including depressions occupied by late Pliocene natural lakes occupying the Verde Valley and Tonto basins. A key location, the lower Verde River valley (LVRV), is where the modern-day drainages of the Salt and Verde now meet downstream of these Pliocene lakes. At the time of the Nomlaki tuff deposition ~3.3 Ma, a condition of sediment overfill existed in the LVRV, although there was no exoreic drainage and a playa was still maintained. A fanglomerate unit, named here the Rolls formation, spilled over a bedrock sill and an alluvial-fan ramp transported sediment into the Higley Basin that underlies the eastern part of metropolitan Phoenix. Lithologies of preserved remnants of this Pliocene alluvial-fan system match well cuttings of buried sediment in the Higley Basin with a cosmogenic burial isochron age of 3.90 ± 0.70 Ma. Based on cosmogenic burial isochron ages, ancestral Salt River gravels started depositing on top of this fan ramp between 2.8 and 2.2 Ma. Deposition of Salt and Verde river gravels in the Higley Basin continued for ~2 million years and eventually led to an aggradational piracy event that overtopped a bedrock ridge immediately east of Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport. A cosmogenic burial age of 460 ± 23 ka is a rough maximum age for this river avulsion that relocated the Salt River into the Luke Basin that underlies western metropolitan Phoenix. Available chronometric data are not precise enough to determine whether the Salt River or Gila River integrated first. All of the exoreic rivers of western North America's Basin and Range Province — the lower Colorado, Gila, Rio Grande, Salt, and Verde rivers — employed lake overflow to integrate across half-graben, graben, rift and supradetachment tectonic settings.

The Salt and Verde rivers, Sonoran Desert, USA, integrated multiple endorheic extensional basins near the start of the Quaternary. Integration began via spillover on both rivers. Spillover resulted in headward erosion in upstream basins, leading to basin-wide incision and excavation of large volumes of sediment transported into downstream basins. As a result, the Verde River aggraded to what is now the highest terrace in the lower Verde River valley (LVRV), the Lousley Hills terrace. Evidence suggests deposition of the Lousley Hills terrace fill led to aggradation and backfilling of adjacent pediments. Ancestral Salt River Deposits (ASRD) of the combined Salt and Verde rivers deposited an extensive alluvial fan in the Higley Basin, raising local base level for over 2 million years. Eventually, this led to aggradational piracy of the Salt River (~0.46 Ma) that integrated the Higley and Luke basins. Consequently, this shortened and steepened the Salt River, resulting in ~30 m of aggradation downstream and headward incision upstream. Headward incision abandoned the ASRD and created the Sawik stream terrace. Piedmont pediment and alluvial fan systems that were formerly adjusted to the ASRD incised in response. Since abandonment, the ASRD floodplain has accumulated a sheet of silt and fine sand from aeolian and local fluvial processes. Sedimentary, metamorphic, and granitic pediments that developed in slowly aggrading endorheic basins display evidence of response to base-level adjustments resulting from drainage integration processes. Classic ballena landforms (eroding alluvial fans) began to form in the LVRV only after drainage integration — providing the first known maximum age for the ballena form. Drainage integration of the Salt and Verde rivers clearly demonstrates the impact of base-level fluctuations on basin-scale geomorphology. However, integration led to very different geomorphic responses in different extensional basins, revealing the difficulty of a one-size-fits-all conceptual model of geomorphic response drainage integration.

The top-down drainage basin integration and drainage network evolutionary processes of lake overflow and aggradational spillover (or aggradational piracy), collectively referred to here as spillover, are undergoing a revitalization in the literature to explain aspects of drainage basin evolution and transverse drainage development across the globe. Spillover processes are commonly unidentified or misidentified as other processes (e.g., piracy/capture via headward erosion, superimposition, antecedence). Commonly invoked arguments for stream piracy associated with “headward erosion” are discussed in the context of contemporary research highlighting the inefficiency of this process. The term “headward erosion” in this context is often misconstrued and confused with headward propagating knickpoints in preexisting drainages that are actively evolving. This term is, therefore, misused when discussing basin integration and the establishment of new transverse drainages. We propose the term “drainage-head erosion” to rectify this and recommend that “headward erosion” only be used when referring to real headward erosion when a preexisting stream has headward propagating knickpoints or a knickzone. Recent investigations have pointed to an engrained paradigm and pedagogical bias as a possible culprit for the lack of recognition of lake overflow and aggradational spillover. Despite this, spillover is common in a variety of terrestrial and extraterrestrial settings, including geomorphic and geographic settings ranging from post-glacial drainage reorganization to drainage integration processes in extensional tectonic terrains. The focus of this manuscript is to provide a summary of these processes as presented in the scientific literature and to highlight the revitalization of spillover in present research with focus on two prominent geomorphic settings where spillover processes commonly occur: proglacial environments and extensional terrains like those of the southwestern United States.

This paper provides support for the concept of geomorphic process domains developed by Montgomery (1999) by linking geomorphic processes to ecological variations seen in the Pima arid granitic watershed of the Sonoran Desert, Phoenix, Arizona. Closer joint spacing shows a statistically significant correlation with lower percentages of mineral grain attachment as measured by digital image processing of backscattered electron microscope imagery. Lower mineral grain attachment leads to more frequent spalling of rock surfaces, as measured by varnish microlamination (VML) ages of the last spalling event. In contrast, more distant joint spacing leads to in situ 10Be erosion rates of 3.4–8.5 mm/ka and the emergence of low domes and kopje granitic landforms; these low domes also serve as knickpoints along ephemeral washes. Distant jointing thus plays a key role in generating the bare bedrock surfaces that funnel limited precipitation to bedrock margins — enhancing the canopy cover of perennial plants next to the bare bedrock. Joint-influenced geomorphic processes at Pima Wash generate four distinct process domains: (PD1) armored drainage divides; (PD2) slopes with different granite landforms; (PD3) mid- and upper basin channels that mix knickzones, strath floodplains, and sandy alluvial sections; and (PD4) the main ephemeral channel transitioning to the piedmont. Distant jointing promotes bedrock exposure and rock armoring along drainage divides in PD1 that then concentrates runoff and promotes perennial plant growth. More distant joint spacing on slopes in PD2 promotes exposure of granitic bedrock forms that shed overland flow to their margin and promotes flora and fauna growths along the margins of low granitic domes and kopjes. Similarly, wider joint spacing along ephemeral washes in PD3 leads to knickpoints, which in turn act to concentrate moisture immediately downstream. The stream terraces in PD4 influence the ecology through xeric desert pavements on terrace treads and roofs for coyotes (Canis latrans) and gray fox (Urocyon Cinereoargenteus) dens on terrace scarps via stage 3 pedogenic carbonate. These four process domains occur in six other randomly selected granitic watersheds with drainage areas

Alluvial fans and fluvial terraces occur in nearly all climatic settings and often coexist within the same drainage basin. These landforms play an important role in understanding the geomorphic, hydrologic, sedimentologic and erosional histories of a basin. The juxtaposition of fans and fluvial terraces, in some instances, can lead to misinterpretation in distinguishing traditional fluvial terraces from the truncated toe of tributary alluvial fans. This becomes particularly troublesome for those attempting to interpret results from published field studies where fan-cut terrace, truncated alluvial fan, toe-cut alluvial fan, alluvial terrace, and incision of the lower end of a fan piedmont all refer to the same genetic landform. We call for use of the term “toe-cut terrace” to represent this landform. We also present criteria to aid in the identification of toe-cut terraces, defined as an abandoned alluvial surface, formed by the truncation of the distal portion of tributary alluvial fans by streams flowing obliquely or perpendicular to the fan surface. Truncation occurs through lateral erosion (“toe-cutting”) or through vertical incision by the trunk drainage lowering the base-level of the alluvial fan. This results in incision into the fan surface abandoning the fan’s depositional surface at a higher level above the modern floodplain – a form that often resembles a fluvial terrace. A case study from the Sonoran Desert in central Arizona illustrates a sequence of abandoned alluvial surfaces that resemble fluvial terraces, but use of the proposed criteria reveal the presence of both toe-cut terraces and traditional fluvial terraces formed by the abandonment of the rivers former floodplain.

Much of the Watonwan River tributary system to the upper Mississippi River basin (UMR), and the fluvial systems to which it drains, are listed as impaired under the United States Environmental Protection Agency Clean Water Act303(d) and/or by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. In addition, eutrophic conditions and excessive sedimentation rates exist in Lake Pepin, a riverine lake to which the UMR drains. Thus, understanding the hydrogeomorphic change throughout the UMR is vital in order to establish appropriate efforts to mitigate environmental hazards downstream. This study attempts to evaluate hydrogeomorphic change at the watershed scale in the Watonwan River watershed between 1855 and the near present. Historical plat maps, digital elevation models (DEMs), aerial images, soil/topographic characteristics, land-use change, and field surveys are analyzed. Surficial hydrologic features digitized from historical plat maps are compared with contemporary stream networks extracted from high-resolution DEMs. Scale effects are investigated using multi-resolution (1 m, 3 m, 8.5 m, and 30 m) DEMs, with 8.5 m DEMs being ideal for watershed scale analysis, and 1–3 m DEMs being ideal for subwatershed analysis. There has been a substantial hydrogeomorphic change in the watershed since 1855, but most significantly, we interpret that the highest rates of erosion occur in the eastern watershed, where knickzone propagation has produced substantial relief.

The Sonoran Desert portion of the Basin and Range physiographic province contains a number of streams that now flow across once-closed basins. We explore here the research questions of if and how granitic rock pediments respond to the transition from rimming endorheic basins to bordering through-flowing streams. Granitic rock pediments of the northern Usery and eastern McDowell Mountains once graded to the closed Miocene–Pliocene Pemberton basin that occupied the present-day location of the confluence of the Salt and Verde Rivers. The process of lake overflow, which integrated these rivers, first aggraded fill terraces that, in turn, caused aggradation of a mantle of transported grus on bedrock pediments. Subsequent episodic incision of the Salt and Verde rivers lowered the base level; this led to the development of erosional features such as rolling topography of a degrading pediment mantle; exposure of the former piedmont angle and its associated zones of enhanced bedrock decay and regolith carbonate; a...

No prior research has documented the different types of rock coatings in Yosemite Valley, despite the evident black streaks down Yosemite Falls, the light granitic rock exposed by recent rock falls contrasting with dark rock coatings, and the millions of visitors who have photographed the coated rocks of Yosemite. This paper identifies the types of rock coatings found on Half Dome, in Yosemite Valley, assesses the hypothesis that the rock coatings of Yosemite are consistent with the landscape geochemical model of rock coating formation, and considers the relevance of equifinality. Eight types of rock coatings were identified: case-hardened surfaces, heavy metal skins, iron films, lithobiontic coatings, oxalate crusts, manganiferous rock varnish, silica glaze, and anthropogenic pigments. The landscape geochemical model of rock coating formation and the concept of equifinality both proved useful in this investigation.

Stream terraces of the Salt River form the interpretive backbone of Plio-Pleistocene landscape evolution of central Arizona, because they represent the base level of all tributary streams. This paper presents a new addition to T.L. Pewe' s Salt River Terrace sequence (in decreasing topographic position and age: Sawik, Mesa, Blue Point, and Lehi) that has been unrefined for the last 30 years. The existence of an older, higher terrace was predicted by research suggesting that the lower Salt River originated by lake overflow from an ancestral Pliocene lake in the Tonto Basin. Field reconnaissance, aerial photo interpretation, and sedimentological analysis revealed this terrace on the north side of the Salt River, named here the Stewart Mountain Terrace (SMT). Where exposed, the fluvial sediments of SMT overlay Tertiary basin fill unconformably. SMT sediments are characterized by ∼50 m thick fluvial gravels found more than 70 m above remnants of the Sawik Terrace. Although the gravels are distinctly ...