Slip-rate measurements on the Karakorum Fault may imply secular variations in fault motion

Beryllium-10 surface exposure dating of offset moraines on one branch of the Karakorum Fault west of the Gar basin yields a long-term (140- to 20-thousand-year) right-lateral slip rate of approximately 10.7 +/- 0.7 millimeters per year. This rate is 10 times larger than that inferred from recent InSAR analyses ( approximately 1 +/- 3 millimeters per year) that span approximately 8 years and sample all branches of the fault. The difference in slip-rate determinations suggests that large rate fluctuations may exist over centennial or millennial time scales. Such fluctuations would be consistent with mechanical coupling between the seismogenic, brittle-creep, and ductile shear sections of faults that reach deep into the crust.     

Contribution of the Patagonia Icefields of South America to sea level rise

Digital elevation models of the Northern and Southern Patagonia Icefields of South America generated from the 2000 Shuttle Radar Topography Mission were compared with earlier cartography to estimate the volume change of the largest 63 glaciers. During the period 1968/1975-2000, these glaciers lost ice at a rate equivalent to a sea level rise of 0.042 +/- 0.002 millimeters per year. In the more recent years 1995-2000, average ice thinning rates have more than doubled to an equivalent sea level rise of 0.105 +/- 0.011 millimeters per year. The glaciers are thinning more quickly than can be explained by warmer air temperatures and decreased precipitation, and their contribution to sea level per unit area is larger than that of Alaska glaciers.     

Rapid glacial erosion at 1.8 Ma revealed by 4He/3He thermochronometry

Alpine glaciation and river incision control the topography of mountain ranges, but their relative contributions have been debated for years. Apatite 4He/3He thermochronometry tightly constrains the timing and rate of glacial erosion within one of the largest valleys in the southern Coast Mountains of British Columbia, Canada. Five proximate samples require accelerated denudation of the Klinaklini Valley initiating 1.8 +/- 0.2 million years ago (Ma). At least 2 kilometers of overlying rock were removed from the valley at >/=5 millimeters per year, indicating that glacial valley deepening proceeded >/=6 times as fast as erosion rates before approximately 1.8 Ma. This intense erosion may be related to a global transition to enhanced climate instability approximately 1.9 Ma.     

Rapid eruption of the siberian traps flood basalts at the permo-triassic boundary

The Siberian Traps represent one of the most voluminous flood basalt provinces on Earth. Laser-heating (40)Ar/(39)Ar data indicate that the bulk of these basalts was erupted over an extremely short time interval (900,000 +/- 800,000 years) beginning at about 248 million years ago at mean eruption rates of greater than 1.3 cubic kilometers per year. Such rates are consistent with a mantle plume origin. Magmatism was not associated with significant lithospheric rifting; thus, mantle decompression resulting from rifting was probably not the primary cause of widespread melting. Inception of Siberian Traps volcanism coincided (within uncertainty) with a profound faunal mass extinction at the Permo-Triassic boundary 249 +/- 4 million years ago; these data thus leave open the question of a genetic relation between the two events.     

Measurements of time-variable gravity show mass loss in Antarctica

Using measurements of time-variable gravity from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment satellites, we determined mass variations of the Antarctic ice sheet during 2002-2005. We found that the mass of the ice sheet decreased significantly, at a rate of 152 +/- 80 cubic kilometers of ice per year, which is equivalent to 0.4 +/- 0.2 millimeters of global sea-level rise per year. Most of this mass loss came from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.     

Global Mean Sea Level Variations from TOPEX/POSEIDON Altimeter Data

The TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite altimeter mission has measured global mean sea level every 10 days over the last 2 years with a precision of 4 millimeters, which approaches the requirements for climate change research. The estimated rate of sea level change is +3.9 +/- 0.8 millimeters per year. A substantial portion of this trend may represent a short-term variation unrelated to the long-term signal expected from global warming. For this reason, and because the long-term measurement accuracy requires additional monitoring, a longer time series is necessary before climate change signals can be unequivocally detected.     

Ocean warming and sea level rise along the southwest u.s. Coast

Hydrographic time-series data recorded during the past 42 years in the upper 500 meters off the coast of southern California indicate that temperatures have increased by 0.8 degrees C uniformly in the upper 100 meters and that temperatures have risen significantly to depths of about 300 meters. The effect of warming the surface layer of the ocean and there by expanding the water column has been to raise sea level by 0.9 +/- 0.2 millimeter per year. Tide gauge records along the coast are coherent with steric height and show upward trends in sea level that vary from about 1 to 3 millimeters per year.     

Crustal Deformation from 1992 to 1995 at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, Southwest Iceland, Mapped by Satellite Radar Interferometry

Satellite radar interferometry observations of the Reykjanes Peninsula oblique rift in southwest Iceland show that the Reykjanes central volcano subsided at an average rate of up to 13 millimeters per year from 1992 to 1995 in response to use of its geothermal field. Interferograms spanning up to 3.12 years also include signatures of plate spreading and indicate that the plate boundary is locked at a depth of about 5 kilometers. Below that depth, the plate movements are accommodated by continuous ductile deformation, which is not fully balanced by inflow of magma from depth, causing subsidence of the plate boundary of about 6.5 millimeters per year.     

Rapid uplift of the Altiplano revealed through 13C-18O bonds in paleosol carbonates

The elevation of Earth's surface is among the most difficult environmental variables to reconstruct from the geological record. Here we describe an approach to paleoaltimetry based on independent and simultaneous determinations of soil temperatures and the oxygen isotope compositions of soil waters, constrained by measurements of abundances of 13C-18O bonds in soil carbonates. We use this approach to show that the Altiplano plateau in the Bolivian Andes rose at an average rate of 1.03 +/- 0.12 millimeters per year between approximately 10.3 and approximately 6.7 million years ago. This rate is consistent with the removal of dense lower crust and/or lithospheric mantle as the cause of elevation gain.     

Earthquake potential along the northern hayward fault, california

The Hayward fault slips in large earthquakes and by aseismic creep observed along its surface trace. Dislocation models of the surface deformation adjacent to the Hayward fault measured with the global positioning system and interferometric synthetic aperture radar favor creep at approximately 7 millimeters per year to the bottom of the seismogenic zone along a approximately 20-kilometer-long northern fault segment. Microearthquakes with the same waveform repeatedly occur at 4- to 10-kilometer depths and indicate deep creep at 5 to 7 millimeters per year. The difference between current creep rates and the long-term slip rate of approximately 10 millimeters per year can be reconciled in a mechanical model of a freely slipping northern Hayward fault adjacent to the locked 1868 earthquake rupture, which broke the southern 40 to 50 kilometers of the fault. The potential for a major independent earthquake of the northern Hayward fault might be less than previously thought.     

Space geodetic observations of nazca-south america convergence across the central andes

Space geodetic data recorded rates and directions of motion across the convergent boundary zone between the oceanic Nazca and continental South American plates in Peru and Bolivia. Roughly half of the overall convergence, about 30 to 40 millimeters per year, accumulated on the locked plate interface and can be released in future earthquakes. About 10 to 15 millimeters per year of crustal shortening occurred inland at the sub-Andean foreland fold and thrust belt, indicating that the Andes are continuing to build. Little (5 to 10 millimeters per year) along-trench motion of coastal forearc slivers was observed, despite the oblique convergence.     

Impact of artificial reservoir water impoundment on global sea level

By reconstructing the history of water impoundment in the world's artificial reservoirs, we show that a total of approximately 10,800 cubic kilometers of water has been impounded on land to date, reducing the magnitude of global sea level (GSL) rise by -30.0 millimeters, at an average rate of -0.55 millimeters per year during the past half century. This demands a considerably larger contribution to GSL rise from other (natural and anthropogenic) causes than otherwise required. The reconstructed GSL history, accounting for the impact of reservoirs by adding back the impounded water volume, shows an essentially constant rate of rise at +2.46 millimeters per year over at least the past 80 years. This value is contrary to the conventional view of apparently variable GSL rise, which is based on face values of observation.     

Dynamics of slow-moving landslides from permanent scatterer analysis

High-resolution interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) permanent scatterer data allow us to resolve the rates and variations in the rates of slow-moving landslides. Satellite-to-ground distances (range changes) on landslides increase at rates of 5 to 7 millimeters per year, indicating average downslope sliding velocities from 27 to 38 millimeters per year. Time-series analysis shows that displacement occurs mainly during the high-precipitation season; during the 1997-1998 El Ni?o event, rates of range change increased to as much as 11 millimeters per year. The observed nonlinear relationship of creep and precipitation rates suggests that increased pore fluid pressures within the shallow subsurface may initiate and accelerate these features. Changes in the slope of a hill resulting from increases in the pore pressure and lithostatic stress gradients may then lead to landslides.     

A budget for continental growth and denudation

Oceanic crustal material on a global scale is re-created every 110 million years. From the data presented it is inferred that potential sialic material is formed at a rate of about 1.35 cubic kilometers per year, including hemipelagic volcanic sediments that accumulate at a rate of about 0.05 cubic kilometer per year. It is estimated that the influx of 1.65 cubic kilometers per year of terrigenous and biogenic sediment is deposited on the deep ocean, and this represents continental denudation. Because all this material is brought into a subduction zone, continental accretion rates, which could include all this material, may be as high as 3.0 cubic kilometers per year with a potential net growth for continents of 1.35 cubic kilometers per year.     

Dilution of the northern North Atlantic Ocean in recent decades

Declining salinities signify that large amounts of fresh water have been added to the northern North Atlantic Ocean since the mid-1960s. We estimate that the Nordic Seas and Subpolar Basins were diluted by an extra 19,000 +/- 5000 cubic kilometers of freshwater input between 1965 and 1995. Fully half of that additional fresh water-about 10,000 cubic kilometers-infiltrated the system in the late 1960s at an approximate rate of 2000 cubic kilometers per year. Patterns of freshwater accumulation observed in the Nordic Seas suggest a century time scale to reach freshening thresholds critical to that portion of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation.     

Continuing worldwide increase in tropospheric methane, 1978 to 1987

The average worldwide tropospheric mixing ratio of methane has increased by 11% from 1.52 parts per million by volume (ppmv) in January 1978 to 1.684 ppmv in September 1987, for an increment of 0.016 +/- 0.001 ppmv per year. Within the limits of our measurements, the global tropospheric mixing ratio for methane over the past decade is consistent either with a linear growth rate of 0.016 +/- 0.001 ppmv per year or with a slight lessening of the rate of growth over the past 5 years. No indications were found of an effect of the El Ni?o-Southern Oscillation-El Chichon events of 1982-83 on total global methane, although severe reductions were reported in the Pacific Northwest during that time period. The growth in tropospheric methane may have increased the water concentration in the stratosphere by as much as 28% since the 1940s and 45% over the past two centuries and thus could have increased the mass of precipitable water available for formation of polar stratospheric clouds.     

Postglacial change in sea level in the Western north atlantic ocean

Radioactive carbon determinations of the age of peat indicate that at Bermuda, southern Florida, North Carolina, and Louisiana the relative sea level has risen at approximately the same rate, 2.5 x 10(-3) foot per year (0.76 x 10(-3) meter per year), during the past 4000 years. It is proposed tentatively that this is the rate of eustatic change in sea level. The rise in sea level along the northeastern coast of the United States has been at a rate much greater than this, indicating local subsidence of the land. Between Cape Cod and northern Virginia, coastal subsidence of 13 feet appears to have occurred between 4000 and 2000 years ago and has continued at a rate of about 1 x 10(-3) foot per year since then. On the northeastern coast of Massachusetts, subsidence of 6 feet occurred between 4000 and 3000 years ago; since then sea level has risen at about the eustatic rate. Between 12,000 and 4000 years ago, sea level rose at an average of about 11 x 10(-3) foot per year. The part played by local subsidence or temporary departures from the average rate during this period is uncertain.     

Evolution of the northern santa cruz mountains by advection of crust past a san andreas fault bend

The late Quaternary marine terraces near Santa Cruz, California, reflect uplift associated with the nearby restraining bend on the San Andreas fault. Excellent correspondence of the coseismic vertical displacement field caused by the 17 October 1989 magnitude 7.1 Loma Prieta earthquake and the present elevations of these terraces allows calculation of maximum long-term uplift rates 1 to 2 kilometers west of the San Andreas fault of 0.8 millimeters per year. Over several million years, this uplift, in concert with the right lateral translation of the resulting topography, and with continual attack by geomorphic processes, can account for the general topography of the northern Santa Cruz Mountains.     

Evidence for deep magma injection beneath Lake Tahoe, Nevada-California

A deep earthquake swarm in late 2003 at Lake Tahoe, California (Richter magnitude < 2.2; depth of 29 to 33 kilometers), was coeval with a transient displacement of 6 millimeters horizontally outward from the swarm and 8 millimeters upward measured at global positioning system station Slide Mountain (SLID) 18 kilometers to the northeast. During the first 23 days of the swarm, hypocentral depths migrated at a rate of 2.4 millimeters per second up-dip along a 40-square-kilometer structure striking north 30 degrees west and dipping 50 degrees to the northeast. SLID's transient velocity of 20 millimeters per year implies a lower bound of 200 nanostrains per year (parts per billion per year) on local strain rates, an order of magnitude greater than the 1996 to 2003 regional rate. The geodetic displacement is too large to be explained by the elastic strain from the cumulative seismic moment of the sequence, suggesting an aseismic forcing mechanism. Aspects of the swarm and SLID displacements are consistent with lower-crustal magma injection under Lake Tahoe.     

Rates of surficial rock creep on hillslopes in Western colorado

The average rate of downslope movement of rock fragments on shale hillslopes is directly proportional to the sine of the slope angle or that component of the gravitational force which acts parallel to the hillslope. The rates of surficial rock creep range from a few millimeters per year on a 3degree slope to almost 70 millimeters per year on a 40-degree slope, but these rates vary with natural variations in soil characteristics and microclimate, as well as with accidental disturbances.