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Evaluating the role of tectonics and climate as possible triggering mechanisms of landscape reconfigurations is essential for paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic reconstructions. In this study an exceptional receptive closed Quaternary system of Patagonia (the Gastre Basin) is described, and examined in order to analyze factors triggering base-level drops. Based on a geomorphological approach, which includes new tectonic geomorphology investigations combined with sedimentological and stratigraphic analysis, three large-scale geomorphological systems were identified, described and linked to two major lake-level highstands preserved in the basin. The results indicate magnitudes of base-level drops that are several orders of magnitude greater than present-day water-level fluctuations, suggesting a triggering mechanism not observed in recent times. Direct observations indicating the occurrence of Quaternary faults were not recorded in the region. In addition, morphometric analyses that included mountain front sinuosity, valley width-height ratio, and fan apex position dismiss tectonic fault activity in the Gastre Basin during the middle Pleistocene–Holocene. Therefore, we suggest here that upper Pleistocene climate changes may have been the main triggering mechanism of base-level falls in the Gastre Basin as it is observed in other closed basins of central Patagonia (i.e., Carri Laufquen Basin). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The regionally correlated and dated regolith–paleolandform sequence of Sub-Saharan West Africa offers a unique opportunity to constrain continental-scale regolith dynamics as the key part of the sediment routing system. In this study, a regolith mapping protocol is developed and applied at the scale of Southwestern Burkina Faso. Mapping combines field survey and remote sensing data to reconstruct the topography of the last pediplain that formed over West Africa in the Early and Mid-Miocene (24–11 Ma). The nature and preservation pattern of the pediplain are controlled by the spatial variation of bedrock lithology and are partitioned among large drainage basins. Quantification of pediplain dissection and drainage growth allows definition of a cratonic background denudation rate of 2 m/My and a minimum characteristic timescale of 20 Ma for shield resurfacing. These results may be used to simulate minimum export fluxes of drainage basins of constrained size over geological timescales. Background cratonic denudation results in a clastic export flux of ~ 4 t/km 2 /year, which is limited by low denudation efficiency of slope processes and correlatively high regolith storage capacity of tropical shields. These salient characteristics of shields' surface dynamics would tend to smooth the riverine export fluxes of shields through geological time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]