Hidden erosion: Study reveals soft mountain rock erodes three times faster than hard rock—with climate implications
A University of Massachusetts Amherst-led research team has discovered that weaker rock in mountain landscapes erodes three times faster than harder rock—even on gentler slopes—and is one of the main attributes governing mountain erosion.
A University of Massachusetts Amherst-led research team has discovered that weaker rock in mountain landscapes erodes three times faster than harder rock—even on gentler slopes—and is one of the main attributes governing mountain erosion.
The short version
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- But in rocks where the grains are too fine, such as shale, the conventional ¹⁰Be technique hasn't worked.
- And that has limited geologists' abilities to accurately pinpoint things like erosion rates across a broad spectrum of rock types.
What happened
That is, until Marder and his colleagues developed a new method for harvesting the rare isotope from such rocks. "When we look at landscapes, we are only seeing a snapshot in time," says Eyal Marder, a postdoctoral researcher in earth, geographic and climate sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the lead author of the new paper.
Why it matters
But researchers want to understand the full geological movie from start to finish in order to understand the land's life cycle.
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