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Landslide erosion coupled to tectonics and river incision

Nature Geoscience volume 5, pages 468–473 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

The steep topography of mountain landscapes arises from interactions among tectonic rock uplift, valley incision and landslide erosion on hillslopes. Hillslopes in rapidly uplifting landscapes are thought to respond to river incision into bedrock by steepening to a maximum stable or ‘threshold’ angle1,2,3. Landslide erosion rates are predicted to increase nonlinearly as hillslope angles approach the threshold angle1,2,3,4,5,6,7. However, the key tenet of this emerging threshold hillslope model of landscape evolution—the coupled response of landslide erosion to tectonic and fluvial forcing—remains untested. Here we quantify landslide erosion rates in the eastern Himalaya, based on mapping more than 15,000 landslides on satellite images. We show that landslide erosion rates are significantly correlated with exhumation rates and stream power and that small increases in mean hillslope angles beyond 30° translate into large and significant increases in landslide erosion. Extensive landsliding in response to a large outburst flood indicates that lateral river erosion is a key driver of landslide erosion on threshold hillslopes. Our results confirm the existence of threshold hillslopes and demonstrate that an increase in landslide erosion rates, rather than steepened hillslope angles, is the primary mechanism by which steep uplands respond to and balance rapid rates of rock uplift and bedrock river incision in tectonically active mountain belts.

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Figure 1: Spatial patterns of stream power, mineral cooling ages, hillslope angles and pre-1974 landslide erosion rates in the eastern Himalaya.
Figure 2: Landslide erosion rate and hillslope angle distributions for the high and low exhumation zones.
Figure 3: Patterns of landslide erosion, hillslope angles, stream power and mineral cooling ages along the long profiles of the Yarlung Tsangpo and Po and Parlung Tsangpo rivers.
Figure 4: Landslide erosion rate versus exhumation rate and stream power.
Figure 5: Landslide erosion rates as a function of hillslope angle.

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Acknowledgements

We thank B. Hallet for stimulating conversations and the Quaternary Research Center for support. I.J.L. thanks the Washington NASA Space Grant fellowship programme, NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship programme, Geological Society of America (GSA) and GSA Quaternary Geology and Geomorphology Division, Sigma Xi and the University of Washington Department of Earth and Space Sciences for support, H. Greenberg for geographic information system support and J. R. Davis for assistance with curve fitting. Gap-filled DEM data were provided courtesy of www.viewfinderpanoramas.org.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Space Sciences and Quaternary Research Center, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195-1310, USA

    Isaac J. Larsen & David R. Montgomery

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  1. Isaac J. Larsen
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Contributions

I.J.L. and D.R.M. jointly designed the study and wrote the manuscript. I.J.L. conducted landslide mapping and data analysis.

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Correspondence to Isaac J. Larsen.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Larsen, I., Montgomery, D. Landslide erosion coupled to tectonics and river incision. Nature Geosci 5, 468–473 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1479

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