Abstract
Landslides play a crucial role in the erosion and topographic evolution of active mountain belts. They drive the expansion of drainage networks in uplifting rock mass, and counter the tectonic mass flux into orogenic systems. Moreover, landslides are the source of most sediment eroded from the continents, and the probability distributions of landslides and their triggers are a first-order control on the variability of the sediment flux from active mountain belts. Here, we illustrate these points with observations from he Southern Alps and other regions of New Zealand, the Central Taiwan Mountains, the Finisterre Mountains of Papua New Guinea and the eastern Greater Caucasus of Azerbaijan.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Abbott, L. D., Silver, E. A., Anderson, R. S., Smith, R., Ingle, J. C., Kling, S. A., Haig, D., Small, E., Galewsky, J., and Sliter, W. (1997). Measurement of tectonic surface uplift in a young collisional mountain belt, Nature, 385, 501–507.
Adler, R.J., Feldman, R.E., and Taqqu, M.S., 1998: A Practical Guide to Heavy Tails: Statistical Techniques and Applications, Birkhauser, Boston.
Ahnert, F. (1970). Functional relationship between denudation, relief, and uplift in large, mid-latitude drainage basins, American Journal of Science, 268, 243–263.
Baker, V. R. (1990). Spring sapping and valley network development, in Higgins, C. G., and Coates, D. R. (eds.), Groundwater Geornorphology: The Role of Subsurface Water in Earth-Surface Processes and Landforms, Geological Society of America Special Paper 252, pp. 235–265.
Beaumont, C., Fulsack, P., and Hamilton, J. (1991). Erosional control of active compressional orogens, in McClay, K. R. (ed.), Thrust Tectonics, Chapman and Hall, New York, pp. 1–18.
Benda, L., and Dunne, T. (1997). Stochastic forcing of sediment supply to channel networks from landsliding and debris flow, Water Resources Research, 33, 2,849–2,863.
Berner, R.A. (1993). Weathering and its effect on atmospheric CO2 over Phanerozoic time, Chemical Geology, 107, 373–374.
Bradinoni, F., and Church, M. (submitted). Representing the landslide magnitude-frequency relation: Capilano River Basin, British Columbia, Earth Surface Processes and Landforms.
Burbank, D. W., Leland, J., Fielding, E., Anderson, R. S., Brozovic, N., Reid, M. R., and Duncan, C. (1996). Bedrock incision, rock uplift and threshold hillslopes in the northwestern Himalayas. Nature, 379, 505–510.
Clift, P., and Gaedicke, C. (2002). Accelerated mass flux to the Arabian Sea during the middle to late Miocene, Geology, 30, 207–210.
Dadson, S. J., Hovius, N., Chen, H., Dade, W. B., Hsieh, M. L., Willett, S. D., Hu, J. C., Horng, M. J., Chen, M. C., Stark, C. P., Lague, D., and Lin, J. C. (submitted). Erosion of the Taiwan orogen, Nature.
Davies, H. L., Lock, J., Tiffin, J. L., Okuda, Y., Murakami, F., and Kisimoto, K. (1987). Convergent tectonics in the Huon Peninsula region, Papua New Guinea, Geo-Marine Letters, 7, 143–152
Densmore, A. L., Anderson, R. S., McAdoo, B. G., and Ellis, M. A. (1997). Hillslope evolution by bedrock landslides, Science, 275, 369–372.
Findlay, R. H., Arumba, J., Kagl, J., Nekitel, S., Ninkama, J., Kopi, G., Tekeve, B., and Abbott, L. D. (1998). The stratigraphy and tectonics of Markham, Geological Survey of Papua New Guinea Memoir 16.
Foley, M. G. (1980). Bed-rock incision by streams. Geological Society of America Bulletin, Part II, 91, 2,189–2,213.
Geli, L., Bard, P.Y., and Jullien, B. (1988) The effect of topography on earthquake ground motion: a review and new results, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 78, 42–63.
Gomez, B., Page, M., Bak, P., and Trustrum, N. (2002). Self-organized criticality in layered, lacustrine sediments formed by landsliding, Geology, 30, 519–522.
Goudie, A. (1995). The Changing Earth, Blackwell, Oxford.
Guzzetti, F., Malamud, B.D., Turcotte, D.L., and Reichenbach, P. (2002). Power-law correlations in landslide areas in central Italy, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 195, 169–183.
Hancock, G. S., Anderson, R. S., and Whipple, K. X. (1998). Beyond power: bedrock river incision process and form, in E. Wohl and K. Tinkler (eds.), Rivers Over Rock: Fluvial Processes in Bedrock Channels, American Geophysical Union, Geophysical Monograph 107, pp. 35–60.
Harp, E.L., and Jibson, R.W. (1996). Landslides triggered by the 1994 Northridge, California, earthquake, Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 96, 319–332.
Hartshorn, K., Hovius, N., Dade, W. B., and Slingerland, R. L. (2002). Climate-driven bedrock incision in an active mountain belt, Science, 297, 2,036–2,038.
Hovius, N., Stark, C. P., and Allen, P. A. (1997). Sediment flux from a mountain belt derived by landslide mapping, Geology, 25, 231–234.
Hovius, N., Stark, C. P., Tutton, M. A., and Abbott, L. D. (1998). Landslide-driven drainage network evolution in a pre-steady-state mountain belt: Finisterre Mountains, Papua New Guinea, Geology, 26, 1071–1074.
Hovius, N., Stark, C. P., Chu, H. T., and Lin, J. C. (2000). Supply and removal of sediment in a landslide-dominated mountain belt: Central Range, Taiwan, Journal of Geology, 108, 73–89.
Howard, A. D., and Kerby, G. (1983). Channel changes in badlands. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 94, 739–752.
Howard, A. D., Seidl, M. A., and Dietrich, W. E. (1994). Modeling fluvial erosion on regional to continental scales, Journal of Geophysical Research, 99, 13,971–13,986.
Iverson, R.M., and Reid, M.E. (1992). Gravity-driven groundwater flow and slope failure potential 1: elastic effective stress model, Water Resources Research, 28, 925–938.
Keefer, D.K. (1994). The importance of earthquake-induced landslides to long-term slope erosion and slope failure hazards in seismically active regions, Geomorphology, 10, 265–284.
Kelsey, H. M. (1988). Formation of inner gorges, Catena, 15, 433–458.
Koons, P. O. (1989). The topographic evolution of collisional mountain belts: a numerical look at the Southern Alps, New Zealand, American Journal of Science, 289, 1041–1069.
Métivier, F., Gaudemer, Y., Tapponnier, P., and Klein, M. (1999). Mass accumulation rates in Asia during the Cenozoic, Geophysical Journal International, 137, 280–318.
Milliman, J. D., and Syvitski, J. P. M. (1992). Geomorphic/tectonic control of sediment discharge to the ocean: the importance of small mountainous rivers, Journal of Geology, 100, 525–544.
Millot, R., Gaillardet, J., Dupré, B., and Allègre, C. J. (2002). The global control of silicate weathering rates and the coupling with physical erosion: new insights from rivers of the Canadian Shield, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 196, 83–98.
Montgomery, D. R. (2001) Slope distributions, threshold hillslopes, and steady-state topography, American Journal of Science, 301, 432–454.
Mongomery, D. R., and Foufoula-Georgiou, E. (1993). Channel network representation using digital elevation models. Water Resources Research, 29, 1,178–1,191.
Montgomery, D. R., and Brandon, M. T. (2002). Topographic controls on erosion rates in tectonically active mountain ranges, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 201, 481–489.
Page, M. J., Trustrum, N. A., and Dymond, J. R. (1994). Sediment budget to assess the geomorphic effect of a cyclonic storm, New Zealand, Geomorphology, 9, 169–188.
Page, M. J., and Trustrum, N. A. (1997). A late Holocene lake sediment record of the erosion response to land use change in a steepland catchment, Zeitschrift für Geomorphologie, 41, 369–392.
Peart, M. (1991). The Kaiapit landslide – events and mechanisms, Papua New Guinea Geological Survey Report 91/2, 16 p.
Pelletier, J. D., Malamud, B. D., Blodgett, T. A., and Turcotte, D. L. (1997). Scale-invariance of soil moisture variability and its implications for the frequency-size distribution of landslides, Engineering Geology, 48, 254–268.
Rothman, D. H., Grotzinger, J. P., and Flemings, P. (1994). Scaling in turbidite deposition, Journal of Sedimentary Research, A64, 59–67.
Schmidt, K. M., and Montgomery, D. R. (1995). Limits to relief, Science, 270, 617–620.
Sklar, L., and Dietrich, W. E. (1998). River longitudinal profiles and bedrock incision models: stream power and the influence of sediment supply, in E. Wohl and K. Tinkler (eds.), Rivers Over Rock: Fluvial Processes in Bedrock Channels, American Geophysical Union, Geophysical Monograph 107, pp. 237–260.
Stark, C. P., and Hovius, N. (2001). The characterization of landslide size distributions, Geophysical research Letters, 28, 1,091–1,094.
Swiss Re (2000). Natural catastrophes and man-made disasters in 1999, Swiss Reinsurance Company, Economic Research and Consulting, Zurich, Sigma No. 2/2000, 35 pp.
Trustrum, N. A., Gomez, B., Page, M. J., Reid, L. M., and Hicks, D. M. (1999). Sediment production, storage and output: the relative role of large magnitude events in steepland catchments, Zeitschrift fur Geomorphologie, Supplement 115, 71–86.
Water Resources Agency (1970–2002). Hydrological year book of Taiwan Republic of China. Taipei: Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan.
Whipple, K. X., Hancock, G. S., and Anderson, R. S. (2000). River incision into bedrock: mechanics, and relative efficacy of plucking, abrasion, and cavitation, Geological Society of America Bulletin, 112, 490–503.
Willett, S. D. (1999). Orogeny and orography: The effects of erosion on the structure of mountain belts, Journal of Geophysical Research, 104, 28,957–28,981.
Willett, S. D., and Brandon, M. T. (2002). On steady states in mountain belts, Geology, 30, 175–178.
Wolman, J. G., and Miller, J. P. (1960). Magnitude and frequency of forces in geomorphic processes, Journal of Geology, 68, 54–74.
Yu, S. B., Chen, H. Y., and Kuo, L. C. (1997). Velocity field of GPS stations in the Taiwan area, Tectonophysics, 274, 41–59.
Zhang, P., Molnar, P., and Downs, W. R. (2001). Increased sedimentation rates and grain sizes 2-4 Myr ago due to the influence of climate change on erosion rates, Nature, 410, 891–897.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2006 Springer
About this paper
Cite this paper
HOVIUS, N., STARK, C. (2006). LANDSLIDE-DRIVEN EROSION AND TOPOGRAPHIC EVOLUTION OF ACTIVE MOUNTAIN BELTS. In: Evans, S.G., Mugnozza, G.S., Strom, A., Hermanns, R.L. (eds) Landslides from Massive Rock Slope Failure. NATO Science Series, vol 49. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4037-5_30
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4037-5_30
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-4035-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-4037-5
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)