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Near steady denudation rates during the late Pleistocene in the tropics
Denudation is a key parameter controlling the evolution of the Earth’s surface, the production of soils, the stability of relief or the long-term evolution of climate. Climate fluctuations conversely have a strong impact on denudation, but these complex feedback mechanisms are still under-constrained. To better predict future changes that will affect our habitat, and understand links between climate and denudation, precise quantification of paleo-denudation rates is required. In this work, we measure cosmogenic radionuclides (10Be) in turbidites of a well-dated marine sedimentary core recovered in the Mozambique Channel to provide a 900 ka long near-continuous record of paleo-denudation rates over the 100 ka climatic cycles. Neodymium isotopes and heavy mineral analysis were used to provide constraints on the provenance of terrigenous sediments exported from Madagascar to the studied site and show that temporal variations in sediment provenance are limited and decoupled from climatic cyclicity. Our 10Be-based paleo-denudation rates are in the same order as modern rates, ranging from 17.4 ± 5.8 mm/ka to 73.9 ± 29.4 mm/ka, and do not show major variations through the Middle and Late Pleistocene. Importantly, we did not identify a systematic significant impact of glacial/interglacial cyclicity on denudation rates. Denudation of this subtropical island may instead have been controlled by variability of monsoon intensity associated with shifts in the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone, but this interpretation remains speculative at this stage as it cannot be recorded within the resolution of cosmogenic-derived denudation rates.
Keyword(s)
10be, geomorphology, paleo-denudation, sediment provenance, tropics, turbidite