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Updated: Oct 6, 2025

Soil Lysimeter Excavation for Coupled Hydrological, Geochemical, and Microbiological Investigations
Published on: September 11, 2016
Morphodynamic limits to environmental signal propagation across landscapes and into strata
Stephan C Toby1, Robert A Duller2, Silvio De Angelis1
1Department of Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences, University of Liverpool, 4 Brownlow Street, Liverpool, L69 3GP, UK.
Abstract:
The sedimentary record contains unique information about landscape response to environmental forcing at timescales that far exceed landscape observations over human timescales. However, stochastic processes can overprint and shred evidence of environmental signals, such as sediment flux signals, and so inhibit their transfer to strata. Our community currently lacks a quantitative framework to differentiate between environmental signals and autogenic signals in field-scale analysis of strata. Here we develop a framework and workflow to estimate autogenic thresholds for ancient sediment routing systems. Crucially these thresholds can be approximated using measurements that are readily attainable from field systems, circumventing the low temporal resolution offered by strata. This work demonstrates how short-term system dynamics can be accessed from ancient sediment routing systems to place morphodynamic limits on environmental signal propagation across ancient landscapes and into strata.
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