Computer Model Could Track Precipitation, Sea Level, and Tectonic Uplift Changes

A new study utilizes a computational model to look at sediment deposits and track precipitation, sea level, and tectonic uplift changes. A record of forces shaping our planet's surface can be seen in natural records, such as tree rings, cave formations, and sediment patterns.

Groundbreaking Study on Sediment Patterns

University of Texas Austin researchers published a recent study in the journal Geology, showing how sediments that are packed together in margins of basins are powerful as a tool in our current understanding of forces that shaped Earth for millions of years. UT Bureau of Economic Geology research associate, Dr. Jinyu Zhang, led the study, with co-authors and bureau researchers Jacob Covault and Zoltán Sylvester.

The study used a computer model in connecting distinct patterns found in sediment deposits to climate shifts and tectonic movement. Jinyu Zhang says that researchers are trying to determine how to distinguish tectonics from climatic signals. With the use of their numerical model, there is now a capacity to simulate our world concerning various climates and tectonics.

In the past, researchers have studied sediment basins for patterns and information on Earth's climate in the distant past, because the formation and changes of sediments are closely related to environmental changes and factors, including snowfall and rainfall. These influence formation of sediments through the processes of sediment transport and erosion from landscapes to basins. Tectonic activity also plays a role in influencing sediment formation.

Geologists have long known that sediment supply is linked to tectonics and climates. However, the study authors say that very little is understood regarding the processes by which these changes directly influence how sediment deposits are formed along the margins of basins relative to a long geological time scale.

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Use of Computational Model

With the use of pyBadlands, an open-source program, a 3D source-to-sink model can track the way that changes in factors such as tectonic uplift, sea level, precipitation influence, and deposition and erosion of sediments.

Their model makes use of topography with the environments in Indus River Delta and Himalaya Mountains as inspiration, to track these sediments as they are transported from mountains to river systems, and ultimately settling into basin margins for millions of years.

According to Covault, it is among the first models to incorporate landscape evolution with stratigraphic responses and depositional responses in 3D form.

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There were 14 scenarios used by the study, using different settings for the climate, tectonic activity, and the sea level. They simulated them on a 30 million-year span to determine sediment deposition and topography changes. These scenarios resulted in distinct patterns on the deposition of sediments, allowing the researchers to make conclusions on the effects of climatic and tectonic factors on the growth of basin margins.

Results and Value of the Study

The researchers found that uplift takes millions of years in effecting basin margin sediments, although this sets the baseline. Meanwhile, precipitation has a more abrupt effect, but it quickly reverts to the previous baseline behavior after the shift.

The sea level potentially complicates the delivery of signals of tectonic changes in the basin. Its increase floods coastal regions and interferes with sediments going to the basin margin. Still, with an increase in precipitation, the supply of sediment was big enough to reach the basin margin.

This model gives geoscientists guidelines in reconstructing the Earth's past, letting them interpret climatic and tectonic histories in basin margin geological archives.

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