Earth and Planetary Science Letters

The Western Alps represent one of the most intensely studied mountain ranges on Earth in terms of structural growth, erosion and sediment flux and have provided important datasets in support of late Cenozoic acceleration in global erosion rates in response to a changing climate. Approximations of past erosion rates using sediment volumes and regional correlations of bedrock thermochronology data …

The Mohns and Knipovich mid-ocean ridges in the Arctic Ocean are ideal settings to investigate the dynamics of spreading centers, being the region affected by intricate interplays between oblique plate kinematics and curved plate boundary geometry. Furthermore, significant mantle thermal structure anomalies coexist with basalts having strongly radiogenic Hf isotopes, which suggest a link between …

Cross-strata on Mars are expressions of ancient bedforms formed due to sediment transport by either wind or water. Some of these cross-strata show peculiar features, including intercalated mudstone drapes, discontinuity surfaces and cyclic patterns in stratum thickness (i.e. bundled cross-strata). In this study, we evaluated the sedimentary features of five of these bundled cross-strata using ima…

The Vosges Mountains (northeast France) are a mid-altitude mountain range with peaks reaching ∼1500 m a.s.l., in a low-deformation setting. Despite this, they maintain significant topographic relief (up to ∼1000 m), characterized by deeply incised valleys and broad, rounded upland summits (“ballons”). This heterogeneous landscape reflects the interplay of long-term tectonic inheritance, extensive…

To investigate whether the presence of helium in apatite slows fission track (FT) annealing, we performed isothermal annealing experiments on large Durango apatite crystals in which we had created He-depleted rims and He-retaining cores. Single crystals were annealed at 310 °C under vacuum for 30–270 min to stimulate helium diffusion and damage annealing, after which spontaneous FT lengths were m…

The pock-marked surface of the Moon provides a stark reminder of the impact flux endured by the early Earth. Notwithstanding, the role of exogenic (impact-driven) processes in the generation and evolution of Earth’s continental crust has attracted relatively little attention compared to endogenic processes driven by loss of heat from the planet’s interior. Here we explore various isotope time ser…

We investigate how fluid pre-conditioning (FP) influences the reactivation and nucleation behavior of a critically stressed laboratory fault during fluid pressurization. Six reactivation experiments were performed on a saw-cut cylindrical sample of Rotondo granite confined at 20 MPa. Fault-parallel and axial deformation were monitored using distributed strain sensing (DSS) with optical fibers, co…