wAbstract
@Many biogeochemical and earth surface processes depend critically
on chemical weathering. The immediate products of chemical weathering
are present as solutes and secondary minerals in groundwater,
soils, and streams, and form the nutritional foundation for terrestrial
biogeochemistry. Chemical weathering also contributes to physical
erosion by weakening bedrock and producing easily erodible regolith,
and as the primary long-term sink for atmospheric CO2
it modulates Earth's long-term climate via the greenhouse effect.
Long-term chemical denudation rates on soil-mantled hillslopes
can be estimated from cosmogenic radionuclide (CRN) concentrations
in soil-borne quartz and the enrichment of a chemically inert
tracer in soil relative to its parent bedrock, a technique that
inherently assumes steady physical erosion over the timescale
of CRN accumulation. We present a numerical model that computes
changes in soil mineralogy and CRN concentrations under time-varying
physical erosion rates, and we use this model to assess the accuracy
of the CRN-based technique for estimating chemical denudation
rates in non-steady conditions.
@Our modeling results suggest that CRN-based estimates of chemical
denudation rates closely resemble actual chemical denudation rates
averaged over the timescale of CRN accumulation, even during large-amplitude
and long-period oscillations in physical erosion rates. For example,
this model predicts that when physical erosion rates fluctuate
sinusoidally by 50% of their mean over any period in time, CRN-based
estimates of chemical denudation rates should differ from actual
chemical denudation rates by less than 15%. Our model also implies
that the chemical denudation rates should approach zero both when
physical erosion rates approach zero (because soluble minerals
become deleted in the soil) and when physical erosion rates approach
the maximum soil production rate (because soil thickness approaches
zero). Modeled chemical denudation rates thus reach a maximum
at intermediate physical erosion rates. If this relationship holds
in nature, it implies that in rapidly eroding regions, further
increases in physical erosion rates (e.g., due to increases in
tectonic uplift rates) may not necessarily lead to faster chemical
denudation on soil-mantled hillslopes.
Keywords: chemical weathering; physical erosion; denudation; cosmogenic
nuclidesx
1. Introduction
2. Theory
@2.1. Chemical denudation rates inferred from concentrations
of cosmogenic radionuclides and immobile elements
@2.2. A model of chemical denudation rates in soil
3. Model results
4. Generalization of model
5. Non-dimensional model results
@5.1. How do the amplitude and period of fluctuations in physical
erosion rates affect the stability of inferred chemical denudation
rates?
@5.2. How do inferred chemical erosion rates compare to actual
chemical erosion rates?
@5.3. How do mineral dissolution rates and clay mineral production
rates affect the stability of inferred chemical denudation rates?
@5.4. Chemical denudation rates at steady physical erosion rates
6. Discussion
Acknowledgments
Appendix A. Supplementary data
References