Forward modelling of the completeness and preservation of palaeoclimate signals recorded by ice-marginal moraines.

Glaciers fluctuate in response to climate change and record these changes by building sedimentary landforms, including moraines. Therefore, glacial landscapes are a potentially valuable archive of terrestrial palaeoclimate change. Typically, a cooling climate causes glaciers to expand and a warming climate causes glaciers to shrink.

Cosmogenic in situ C-Be reveals abrupt Late Holocene soil loss in the Andean Altiplano.

Soil sustainability is reflected in a long-term balance between soil production and erosion for a given climate and geology. Here we evaluate soil sustainability in the Andean Altiplano where accelerated erosion has been linked to wetter climate from 4.5 ka and the rise of Neolithic agropastoralism in the millennium that followed.

Widespread erosion on high plateaus during recent glaciations in Scandinavia.

Glaciers create some of Earth's steepest topography; yet, many areas that were repeatedly overridden by ice sheets in the last few million years include extensive plateaus. The distinct geomorphic contrast between plateaus and the glacial troughs that dissect them has sustained two long-held hypotheses: first, that ice sheets perform insignificant erosion beyond glacial troughs, and, second, that the plateaus represent ancient pre-glacial landforms bearing information of tectonic and geomorphic history prior to Pliocene-Pleistocene global cooling (~3.5 Myr ago).

Corrigendum: Glacial isostatic uplift of the European Alps.

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/ncomms13382.

One million years of glaciation and denudation history in west Greenland.

The influence of major Quaternary climatic changes on growth and decay of the Greenland Ice Sheet, and associated erosional impact on the landscapes, is virtually unknown beyond the last deglaciation. Here we quantify exposure and denudation histories in west Greenland by applying a novel Markov-Chain Monte Carlo modelling approach to all available paired cosmogenic Be-Al bedrock data from Greenland. We find that long-term denudation rates in west Greenland range from >50 m Myr in low-lying areas to ∼2 m Myr at high elevations, hereby quantifying systematic variations in denudation rate among different glacial landforms caused by variations in ice thickness across the landscape.

Glacial isostatic uplift of the European Alps.

Following the last glacial maximum (LGM), the demise of continental ice sheets induced crustal rebound in tectonically stable regions of North America and Scandinavia that is still ongoing. Unlike the ice sheets, the Alpine ice cap developed in an orogen where the measured uplift is potentially attributed to tectonic shortening, lithospheric delamination and unloading due to deglaciation and erosion. Here we show that ∼90% of the geodetically measured rock uplift in the Alps can be explained by the Earth's viscoelastic response to LGM deglaciation.

Lifespan of mountain ranges scaled by feedbacks between landsliding and erosion by rivers.

An important challenge in geomorphology is the reconciliation of the high fluvial incision rates observed in tectonically active mountain ranges with the long-term preservation of significant mountain-range relief in ancient, tectonically inactive orogenic belts. River bedrock erosion and sediment transport are widely recognized to be the principal controls on the lifespan of mountain ranges. But the factors controlling the rate of erosion and the reasons why they seem to vary significantly as a function of tectonic activity remain controversial.

Glaciations in response to climate variations preconditioned by evolving topography.

Landscapes modified by glacial erosion show a distinct distribution of surface area with elevation (hypsometry). In particular, the height of these regions is influenced by climatic gradients controlling the altitude where glacial and periglacial processes are the most active, and as a result, surface area is focused just below the snowline altitude. Yet the effect of this distinct glacial hypsometric signature on glacial extent and therefore on continued glacial erosion has not previously been examined.