Shortening, structural relief and drainage evolution in inverted rifts: insights from the Atlas Mountains, the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia and the Pyrenees - Université de Rennes Accéder directement au contenu
Chapitre D'ouvrage Année : 2013

Shortening, structural relief and drainage evolution in inverted rifts: insights from the Atlas Mountains, the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia and the Pyrenees

Antonio Teixell
Eliseo Teson
  • Fonction : Auteur

Résumé

The Atlas, Eastern Cordillera and Pyrenees are thick-skinned thrust-fold belts formed by tectonic inversion of rift basins in continental settings. A comparison of shortening between them shows a gradation from 20-25% in the central High Atlas, to 25-30% in the Eastern Cordillera, and c. 40% in the Pyrenees. Accordingly, there is a structural variation from interior zones with low structural relief and isolated basement massifs in the first two cases, to an axial culmination of stacked basement thrust sheets in the Pyrenees. This results in marked topographic and drainage variation: the High Atlas and Eastern Cordillera contain axial plateaus dominated by structure-controlled longitudinal rivers and orogen flanks with slope-controlled transverse rivers, whereas the Pyrenees show a two-sided wedge profile dominated by transverse rivers. In spite of singularities exhibited by each orogen, we propose that this spatial variation can be understood as reflecting different degrees of evolution in mountain building. Rapidly incising, transverse rivers are capturing earlier longitudinal streams of the Atlas and Eastern Cordillera, thus reducing their axial plateaux, which will eventually disappear into a transverse-dominated drainage. This pattern of landscape evolution may be characteristic of inversion orogens as they develop from initial stages of inversion to full accretion.
Fichier non déposé

Dates et versions

insu-00948689 , version 1 (18-02-2014)

Identifiants

Citer

Julien Babault, Antonio Teixell, Lucia Struth, Jean van den Driessche, Maria-Luisa Arboleya, et al.. Shortening, structural relief and drainage evolution in inverted rifts: insights from the Atlas Mountains, the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia and the Pyrenees. M. NEMCOK EGI, USA A. MORA and J. W. COSGROVE (Eds.). Thick-Skin-Dominated Orogens: From Initial Inversion to Full Accretion, Geological Society of London, pp.141-158, 2013, Geological Society, London, Special Publications, n°377, 978-1-86239-358-5. ⟨10.1144/SP377.14⟩. ⟨insu-00948689⟩
102 Consultations
0 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More