Geomorphological evidence of recent tilting in the Central Amazonia Region

Abstract

Geomorphometric techniques applied to remote sensing data represent powerful tools as an aid for detecting terrain features produced by recent vertical crustal movements in a variety of landscapes. In this work, geomorphometric analysis of the Central Amazonia drainage network using Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) data was carried out to determine surface water loading and tectonic influence on the development of the Uatumã and Urubu river basins since the Miocene. The main objective was to detect geomorphological domains of lateral stream migration and channel sinuosity changes that could indicate recent vertical crustal movement. To achieve this, the Transverse Topographic Symmetry Factor and Sinuosity Index were applied to analyze the study area drainage network. Comparison of the geomorphological domains with structural field data and records of seismicity suggests that they are influenced by subsurface fault reactivation, which coincides in space with faults mapped in outcrops that have activated since the Miocene. This interpretation is corroborated by the spatial correspondence between these faults with domain boundaries and shapes, by river sinuosity change when crossing these boundaries, and by a high concentration of seismic activity along one of these limits. The crustal movement caused by hydrological loading can also influence such geomorphological features. Such is the case of lateral stream migrations of a domain in the opposite sense to the Amazon River flow. This may be a consequence of the more pronounced expression of hydrological loading in the Negro and Solimões river confluence region.