Uplift history of the Sila Massif, southern Italy, deciphered from cosmogenic 10Be erosion rates and river longitudinal profile analysis

Abstract

The Sila Massif in the Calabrian Arc (southern Italy) is a key site to study the response of a landscape to rock uplift. Here an uplift rate of ∼1 mm/yr has imparted a deep imprint on the Sila landscape recorded by a high‐standing low‐relief surface on top of the massif, deeply incised fluvial valleys along its flanks, and flights of marine terraces in the coastal belt. In this framework, we combined river longitudinal profile analysis with hillslope erosion rates calculated by 10Be content in modern fluvial sediments to reconstruct the long‐term uplift history of the massif. Cosmogenic data show a large variation in erosion rates, marking two main domains. The samples collected in the high‐standing low‐relief surface atop Sila provide low erosion rates (from 0.09 ± 0.01 to 0.13 ± 0.01 mm/yr). Conversely, high values of erosion rate (up to 0.92 ± 0.08 mm/yr) characterize the incised fluvial valleys on the massif flanks. The analyzed river profiles exhibit a wide range of shapes diverging from the commonly accepted equilibrium concave‐up form. Generally, the studied river profiles show two or, more frequently, three concave‐up segments bounded by knickpoints and characterized by different values of concavity and steepness indices. The wide variation in cosmogenic erosion rates and the non‐equilibrated river profiles indicate that the Sila landscape is in a transient state of disequilibrium in response to a strong and unsteady uplift not yet counterbalanced by erosion.