The oxidation of landscapes

Abstract:

At the base of the critical zone, fresh rock is transformed through chemical alteration of minerals and fracturing. The resulting hydrologically dynamic weathered bedrock zone strongly influences how mass is routed throughout a landscape. Studies of weathering in a variety of lithologies and climates have documented the role of oxygen in driving the onset of weathering. Porosity is generated through processes such as the formation of sulfuric acid via oxidative pyrite dissolution and strain via iron oxidation in biotite. The transport of meteoric oxygen is therefore a mechanism that links the topographic surface to weathering processes at depth. Here, we present an alternative to the theory that the advance of an oxidation front is driven by downward advection and diffusion of meteoric fluid. We present field data and theory that suggest that the slow drainage of groundwater within fresh bedrock drives the displacement of unreactive pore fluid from low-porosity fresh bedrock. This drainage, and the subsequent introduction of meteoric fluid to fresh rock, is a hillslope scale process driven by channel incision. The resulting distribution of weathered rock across the landscape is thus controlled by the fresh bedrock porosity and permeability and the rate of channel incision.