Sara Polanco, Mike Blum, Tristan Salles, Bruce C. Frederick, Rebecca Farrington, Xuesong Ding, Ben Mather, Claire Mallard, Louis Moresi
{"title":"Flexural isostatic response of continental-scale deltas to climatically driven sea level changes","authors":"Sara Polanco, Mike Blum, Tristan Salles, Bruce C. Frederick, Rebecca Farrington, Xuesong Ding, Ben Mather, Claire Mallard, Louis Moresi","doi":"10.5194/esurf-12-301-2024","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract. The interplay between climate-forced sea level change, erosional and depositional processes, and flexural isostasy in deep time on passive margin deltas remains poorly understood. We performed a series of conceptual simulations to investigate flexural isostatic responses to high-frequency fluctuations in water and sediment load associated with climatically driven sea level changes. We model a large drainage basin that discharges to a continental margin and produces a large deltaic depocenter, then prescribe synthetic and climatic-driven sea level curves of different frequencies to assess flexural response. Results show that flexural isostatic responses are bidirectional over 100–1000 kyr timescales and are in sync with the magnitude, frequency, and direction of sea level fluctuations and that isostatic adjustments play an important role in driving along-strike and cross-shelf river mouth migration and sediment accumulation. Our findings demonstrate that climate-forced sea level changes produce a feedback mechanism that results in self-sustaining creation of accommodation into which sediment is deposited and plays a major role in delta morphology and stratigraphic architecture.","PeriodicalId":48749,"journal":{"name":"Earth Surface Dynamics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Earth Surface Dynamics","FirstCategoryId":"89","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-12-301-2024","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"GEOGRAPHY, PHYSICAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract. The interplay between climate-forced sea level change, erosional and depositional processes, and flexural isostasy in deep time on passive margin deltas remains poorly understood. We performed a series of conceptual simulations to investigate flexural isostatic responses to high-frequency fluctuations in water and sediment load associated with climatically driven sea level changes. We model a large drainage basin that discharges to a continental margin and produces a large deltaic depocenter, then prescribe synthetic and climatic-driven sea level curves of different frequencies to assess flexural response. Results show that flexural isostatic responses are bidirectional over 100–1000 kyr timescales and are in sync with the magnitude, frequency, and direction of sea level fluctuations and that isostatic adjustments play an important role in driving along-strike and cross-shelf river mouth migration and sediment accumulation. Our findings demonstrate that climate-forced sea level changes produce a feedback mechanism that results in self-sustaining creation of accommodation into which sediment is deposited and plays a major role in delta morphology and stratigraphic architecture.
期刊介绍:
Earth Surface Dynamics (ESurf) is an international scientific journal dedicated to the publication and discussion of high-quality research on the physical, chemical, and biological processes shaping Earth''s surface and their interactions on all scales.