Postglacial adjustment of steep, low-order drainage basins, Canadian Rocky Mountains
Bibliographic record
Abstract
[1] It is generally argued that Pleistocene glaciation results in increased sediment flux in mountain systems. An important, but not well constrained, aspect of Pleistocene glacial erosion is the geomorphic decoupling of cirque basins from main river systems. This study provides a quantitative link between glacier-induced basin morphology, postglacial erosion, and sediment delivery for mountain headwaters (with basin area <10 km2). We analyze the morphology of 57 headwater basins in the Canadian Rockies and establish postglacial sediment budgets for select basins. Notable differences in headwater morphology suggest different degrees of erosion by cirque glaciers, which we classify into headwater basins with either cirque or noncirque morphology. Despite steeper slope gradients in cirque basins, higher-mean postglacial erosion rates in basins with noncirque morphology (0.43–0.6 mm a−1) compared to those in cirques (0.19–0.39 mm a−1) suggest a more complex relationship between hillslope erosion and slope gradient in calcareous mountain environments than implied by the threshold hillslope concept. Higher values of channel profile concavity and lower channel gradients in cirques imply lower transport capacities and, thus, lower sediment delivery ratios (SDR). These results are supported by (i) postglacial SDR values for cirques and noncirque basins of <15% and >28%, respectively, and (ii) larger fan sizes at outlets of noncirque basins compared to cirques. Although small headwater basins represent the steepest part of mountain environments and erode significant postglacial sediment, the majority of sediment remains in storage under interglacial climatic conditions and does not affect large-scale mountain river systems.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".