About this Research Topic
The tropics represent a significant part of the continental Earth, including the highest mountain ranges, ancient flat surfaces, arid landscapes, and largest rivers, floodplains, and deltas. These contrasting landscapes play a key role in sediment flux from land to ocean, biogeochemical cycles, global climate changes, biodiversity conservation, and support of populated urban centers. Despite geomorphologists having studied the tropics since the 19th century, the recent flourishing of new approaches and techniques allows the timing and rate of the processes shaping these landscapes to be quantified, promoting a transformative revolution in the understanding of tropical surface dynamics.
This research topic aims to collect original contributions on the application of modern approaches, methods, and techniques to investigate internal or surface processes that control the landscape evolution in tropical regions, from deserts to rainforests, from mountain belts to alluvial plains, including coastal regions. Potential contributions may focus on (but are not limited to):
- Use of chronological methods (i.e., radiocarbon, luminescence dating, (U-Th)/He, A-Ar, K-Ar, and cosmogenic nuclides) to reconstruct sedimentological and weathering histories of the depositional landscapes, such as floodplains and terraces, eolian fields, and coastal environments;
- Use geochemical and mineralogical analysis (i.e., trace element, non-conventional and conventional isotopes, bulk chemistry, DRX, detrital thermochronology and geochronology, magnetic proxies, and cosmogenic nuclides) to track sediment provenance, quantify erosion and weathering rates and detect changes in landscape processes across spatiotemporal scales;
- Use of landscape evolution models (i.e.., numerical models) to test hypothesis and simulated scenarios of landscape evolution in local and regional tropical regions;
- Use of remote sensing products and analytical approaches which allows us to quantify or model changes in topography and surface processes in short-term timescales.
This research topic aims to collect original contributions on the application of modern approaches, methods, and techniques to investigate internal or surface processes that control the landscape evolution in tropical regions, from deserts to rainforests, from mountain belts to alluvial plains, including coastal regions. Potential contributions may focus on (but are not limited to):
- Use of chronological methods (i.e., radiocarbon, luminescence dating, (U-Th)/He, A-Ar, K-Ar, and cosmogenic nuclides) to reconstruct sedimentological and weathering histories of the depositional landscapes, such as floodplains and terraces, eolian fields, and coastal environments;
- Use geochemical and mineralogical analysis (i.e., trace element, non-conventional and conventional isotopes, bulk chemistry, DRX, detrital thermochronology and geochronology, magnetic proxies, and cosmogenic nuclides) to track sediment provenance, quantify erosion and weathering rates and detect changes in landscape processes across spatiotemporal scales;
- Use of landscape evolution models (i.e.., numerical models) to test hypothesis and simulated scenarios of landscape evolution in local and regional tropical regions;
- Use of remote sensing products and analytical approaches which allows us to quantify or model changes in topography and surface processes in short-term timescales.
Keywords: Tropics, Landscape Evolution, Earth surface processes, Quantitative geomorphology, Geochronology
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
