Abstract
Rivers are key elements of the landscape sensitive to changes in the rate of rock uplift. For the case where rock uplift is rapid, rivers experience a drop of their base-level leading to the formation of a knickpoint that propagates through the fluvial network. Such response is expected in extensional settings where rivers incise across the fault scarp direction. The NW portion of the state of Sonora (NW Mexico), belongs to the Basin and Range province where the extensional activity produced the arrangement of mountain ranges with NNW to SSE orientation. The extension started in the Late Oligocene and continued in the Miocene; however, when the landscape responded to the tectonic activity across the river basin remains unknown. The basin morphometry and knickpoint propagation ages are used to explore evidence of the first extensional activity traced back from the modern landscape of the Sonora river basin (SRB). The results of basins morphometric analysis indicate that the landscape steepness is high at the northeastern, central and southern portion of the SRB. Such trend is in agreement with the estimated ages of knickpoint retreat that range from ~19 to ~10 Ma. The results obtained in this study indicate that the landscape of the SRB has been affected by many phases of tectonic events, probably occurred in the Pliocene and Quaternary, and the landscape has not reached the equilibrium.
Published Version
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