--> Abstract: Denudation, Transport, and Deposition in the Andes: Geomorphic Controls of Meso-Scale Sediment Flux, by R. Aalto and T. Dunne; #90937 (1998).

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Abstract: Denudation, Transport, and Deposition in the Andes: Geomorphic Controls of Meso-Scale Sediment Flux

AALTO, ROLF, University of Washington; THOMAS DUNNE, University of California, Santa Barbara

Summary

Draining less than ten percent of the Amazon basin area, Andean rivers supply over 99% of the total sediment load. However, only a fraction of eroded Andean sediment reaches gauged mainstem Amazon tributaries; almost two-thirds of the eroded material deposits in the foreland basins adjacent to the range front. Andean erosion rates were previously known only for a small number of catchments. We have analyzed a new dataset of sediment fluxes for Bolivian rivers, extracting statistically-significant relationships between climate, lithology, geomorphic form and observed process. These relationships enable us to test and calibrate geomorphic theory to estimate denudation, transport, and deposition in other Andean catchments for which we have limited field measurements of mass flux.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90937©1998 AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition, Salt Lake City, Utah