Rapid terrace incision and Quaternary landscape evolution in central Patagonia

Abstract

The debate over isostatic uplift versus discharge as drivers of Quaternary river incision is explored here through geospatial analysis of a ~250-m-relief terrace sequence from the Río Pinturas (Argentine Patagonia). The geomorphic setting of the Cañadon Caracoles reach allows evaluation of discharge as a driver of terrace incision because advancing ice during Pleistocene glaciations blocked Pacific drainage and routed meltwater from an expanded ~10⁴-km² catchment to the Atlantic through the dryland steppe of the study area. Twenty-two terrace levels, some assigned to previously dated ice margins [Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 32–36, MIS 16, MIS 8 and MIS 2], were identified. Average net incision since 800 ka (~0.34 m ka⁻¹) exceeded regional uplift rates. The MIS 2 terraces, with ante quem and post quem age constraint on the timing of terrace formation, show that terrace incision was episodic and faster still during a transitional warming climate. Glacier recession and proglacial lake formation at ~18 ka led to rapid incision of ~11.7 m ka⁻¹ over a few millennia. River capture and negligible flow from ~15.0 ka caused fan-dammed lake formation on the valley floor and vertical stability during MIS 1. The Pinturas terraces demonstrate rapid incision can be driven by discharge and sediment dynamics.