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Quantifying the erosional impact of a continental-scale drainage capture in the Duero Basin, northwest Iberia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2018

Loreto Antón*
Affiliation:
Departamento de Ciencias Analíticas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), 28040 Madrid, Spain Grupo de Investigación en Tectonofísica Aplicada, Departamento Geodinámica, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Alfonso Muñoz-Martín
Affiliation:
Grupo de Investigación en Tectonofísica Aplicada, Departamento Geodinámica, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain Instituto de Geociencias (UCM, CSIC), 28040 Madrid, Spain
Gerardo De Vicente
Affiliation:
Grupo de Investigación en Tectonofísica Aplicada, Departamento Geodinámica, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain Instituto de Geociencias (UCM, CSIC), 28040 Madrid, Spain
*
*Corresponding author at: Departamento de Ciencias Analíticas, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), Senda del Rey 9, 28040 Madrid, Spain. E-mail address: lanton@ccia.uned.es (L. Antón).

Abstract

Formerly closed drainage basins provide exceptional settings for quantifying fluvial incision and landscape dissection at different time scales. Endorheic basins trap all the sediment eroded within the watershed, which allows estimates of post–basin opening erosion patterns. The Duero Basin was a former closed basin and is presently drained by the Duero River into the Atlantic Ocean. During the Cenozoic, the basin experienced a long endorheic period, marked by the formation of continental carbonates and evaporites. The retrogressive erosion of the Atlantic drainage coming from the Portuguese coast subsequently captured the internal drainage, and significant fluvial dissection occurred. Presently, the basin contains a relatively well-preserved sedimentary fill. Gridding and surface fitting in this paper provide the first attempt to reconstruct the surface of the top of the former endorheic sedimentary sequence to quantify the erosional impact of the basin opening. At least 2251±524 km3 of sediment was removed from the formerly closed basin following the start of exorheism. This volume represents a mean basin-surface lowering of 65±13 m. Erosion estimates and landscape dissection patterns are consistent with geologic evidence of progressive establishment of an outward drainage system.

Type
Thematic Set: Fluvial Archives Group (FLAG) Poland
Copyright
Copyright © University of Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2018 

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