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The Rift of Corinth is a world-class example of young active rifting and, as such, is an ideal natural laboratory of continental extension. However, though much investigated for two decades, several aspects of the mechanisms at work are still poorly understood. The aim of this paper is a detailed morphometric study of the fluvial landscape response to the tectonic uplift of the rift southern shoulder in order to reconstruct the rift's Quaternary evolution, with special attention to timing, location, and intensity of uplift episodes. Based on the use of a large set of catchment and long profile metrics complemented by the new R/SR integrative approach of the regional drainage network, we identified three distinct episodes of uplift of the northern Peloponnese coastal tract, of which the intermediate one, dated around 0.35–0.4 Ma, is only recorded in the topography of the central part of the rift shoulder, and the youngest one appears to have propagated from east to west over the last 10–20 ka. While net uplift remained minimum in the eastern part of the study area during the whole Quaternary, it shows a clear maximum in the central part of the rift shoulder since 0.4 Ma and an eastward shift of this maximum in recent times. Maximum uplift rates calculated from the morphometric data are of > 1.05 and 2–5 mm year− 1 for, the mid-Middle Pleistocene and Holocene uplift episodes, respectively. The morphometric evidence reveals an onshore uplift history remarkably consistent with the rift evolution reconstructed from other data sets. In the long term, it shows a stable pattern of maximum activity in the central part of the rift, confirming previous conclusions about the absence of rift propagation. In the short term, it sheds light on a possible E–W migration of the zone of recent uplift, suggesting that in the near future fault activity and seismic hazard might concentrate in the Heliki–Aegion area, at the western tip of this uplift wave.

Model parameterization through adjustment to field data is a crucial step in the modeling and the understanding of the drainage network response to tectonic or climatic perturbations. Using as a test case a data set of 18 knickpoints that materialize the migration of a 0.7-Ma-old erosion wave in the Ourthe catchment of northern Ardennes (western Europe), we explore the impact of various data fitting on the calibration of the stream power model of river incision, from which a simple knickpoint celerity equation is derived. Our results show that statistical least squares adjustments (or misfit functions) based either on the stream-wise distances between observed and modeled knickpoint positions at time t or on differences between observed and modeled time at the actual knickpoint locations yield significantly different values for the m and K parameters of the model. As there is no physical reason to prefer one of these approaches, an intermediate least-rectangles adjustment might at first glance appear as the best compromise. However, the statistics of the analysis of 200 sets of synthetic knickpoints generated in the Ourthe catchment indicate that the time-based adjustment is the most capable of getting close to the true parameter values. Moreover, this fitting method leads in all cases to an m value lower than that obtained from the classical distance adjustment (for example, 0.75 against 0.86 for the real case of the Ourthe catchment), corresponding to an increase in the non-linear character of the dependence of knickpoint celerity on discharge.

Geomorphometry may be a powerful tool to describe the characteristics of the landscape's response to tectonic signals, but the meaning of morphometric indices is often obscured by the interplay between the many variables controlling the geomorphological evolution. Moreover, although the so-called hypsometric integral refers to the basin scale, most indices are generally derived from the river long profiles and thus focus mainly on the short-term response of a drainage network to base level change, providing limited information in regions of older and/or moderate uplift. Here, using the Rhenish shield (western Europe), an area of moderate Quaternary uplift, as a test case, I attempt to build an index yielding a comprehensive view of the stage attained by the landscape's response and, indirectly, an evaluation of the timing of the triggering base level change. This index, called R 1 , is a ratio of differences between the three integrals linked respectively to the classical basin's hypsometric curve, to the main river's long profile, and at the intermediate level, to a ‘drainage network's hypsometric curve’. While its ratio form minimizes the lithological effect on R 1 , this index is strongly correlated with basin size (regional correlation coefficients are in the range 0.88–0.93), reflecting the way an erosion wave propagates from the outlet of a basin toward its headwaters. Therefore, it is not directly usable as a proxy for relative uplift age. However, one can show that the relation between R 1 and basin size is theoretically expected to change with time. Following uplift, the slope S r of the linear relation R 1 = f (ln A ) first increases rapidly but briefly, then it gradually diminishes over several million years. This is fully confirmed by the analysis of R 1 and S r in the study area. Once its initial increase is completed (assumedly in a few ten thousand years), S r appears to be a reliable indicator of relative uplift (or any other cause of base level lowering) age.

article i nfo The area of the Pays de Herve in eastern Belgium is strongly affected by recent landslide activity. Dormant landslides are widespread in the region and some of these dormant landslides have been reactivated by human activity such as highway construction, suburban development, or building of industrial sewage pipes. The investigated landslide was reactivated by heavy rainfall events in the late 1990s. During this reactivation an existing industrial sewage pipe was damaged and the chemically loaded waste water drained into the landslide mass. The current landslide movement is assumed to be heavily influenced by the additional water supply as well as by the chemical activity of univalent ions in the clay fraction leading to a decreased shear resistance. Consequently, the movement-triggering rainfall thresholds are reduced and result in a decreased overall slope stability. This study describes a general methodology of field investigation, data collection and laboratory testing for an exploratory study. Influences of chemical properties of soil and soil water and their effects on landslide stability are analysed, discussed and related to findings of other studies. Although no clear empirical evidence for a dependency between slope stability and ionic loaded soil water was found in this study, we suggest the existence for such a relationship. We conclude that this particular landslide would not have moved based on current environmental conditions. The leaking waste water might favour current landslide movement.

Fluvial terraces are a powerful tool for unraveling the combined tectonic and climatic conditions that controlled, directly or indirectly, the Quaternary incision of rivers. Terrace long profiles are usually retrieved from sparse traces of ancient floodplains preserved in the present topography. However, when these traces classically collected from topographic maps, aerial photographs, and field analyses are too few, the inferred profiles may be questionable. Yet the now available high quality and high resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) offer an opportunity to increase greatly the quantity of information usable to reconstruct terrace profiles. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop a new DEM-based method of terrace recognition in order to create a larger database and better constrain the profile reconstruction. Moreover, particular procedures of image and numerical processing were defined to fully automate the analysis. Basically, our method relies on the production of bivariate scatter plots depicting the relation between slope and relative altitude (i.e., the altitude above the current alluvial plain) for all pixels of successive sections of the valley. For each scatter plot, the curve of the lowest slope values observed at every relative altitude is smoothed and its minima are assumed to locate the altitudes of the “terrace” elements preserved in the section. We successfully tested this method in the Vesdre valley, incised in the NE Ardenne massif (E Belgium), notably identifying fault deformation of the profiles. The main advantages of our approach are its objectivity, exhaustiveness, and rapidity, allowing fast and coherent analysis of many rivers over extended regions.

A landslide susceptibility map is proposed for the Pays de Herve (E Belgium), where large landslides affect Cretaceous clay outcrop areas. Based on a Bayesian approach, this GIS-supported probabilistic map identifies the areas most susceptible to deep landslides. The database is comprised of the source areas of ten pre-existing landslides (i.e. a sample of 154 grid cells) and of six environmental data layers, namely lithology, proximity to active faults, slope angle and aspect, elevation and distance to the nearest valley-floor. A 30-m-resolution DEM from the Belgian National Geographical Institute is used for the analysis. Owing to the small size of the sample, a special cross-validation procedure of the susceptibility map is performed, which uses in an iterative way each of the landslides to test the predictive power of the map derived from the other landslides. Four different sets of variables are used to produce four susceptibility maps, whose prediction curves are compared. While the prediction rates associated with the models not involving the “proximity to active fault” criterion are comparable to those of the models considering this variable, strong weaknesses inherent in the fault data on which the latter rely suggest that the final susceptibility map should be based on a model that excludes any reference to fault. This highlights the difference between a triggering factor and determining factors, and in the same time broadens the scope of the produced map. A single reactivated slide is also used to test the possibility of predicting future reactivation of existing landslides in the area. Finally, the need for geomorphological control over the mathematical treatment is underlined in order to obtain realistic prediction maps. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The longitudinal profiles of 24 rivers of 3rd to 5th order have been analyzed in order to recognize the regional tectonic differentiation pattern of the Ardenne, a Paleozoic massif of NW Europe. Data collected exclusively from 1/25,000 topographic maps were used to define a set of parameters related to the geometry of the profile and proxies for river bedload and drainage area. Validation of the proxy defined for the bedload/discharge ratio demonstrates its potential use for inter-river comparison based on its value at the river mouth; it is however inadequate to estimate the ratio changes along a given stream course. This proxy has been computed to estimate the portion accounted for by hydrodynamic factors in the river bed profiling. Thus, outliers to the correlation function linking it to the river bed gradient have been considered as undergoing other influences, principally of lithologic or tectonic origin. Most indicative of the computed profile parameters are those related to the concavity of the profile. Four more or less regional longitudinal profile types are recognized which are partly determined by differential tectonic movement. The combined analysis of all the parameters confirms the current uplift of the NE Ardenne and points to a subsidence of the Namur area with respect to its SW and SE surroundings. Whether periglacial or tectonic in origin, the Upper Pleistocene lowering of a local base-level has also been identified in the Famenne. Another conclusion of this study is that in order to evidence tectonic influences and to avoid any misinterpretation in a region of complex geologic and geomorphic history and moderate tectonic activity, it is essential to consider a number of parameters and to consider their significance within the framework of detailed geologic setting and morphogenetic history.