Cited by 558Geological and Geochemical AnalysisGeology and Paleoclimatology ResearchGeological formations and processes

Worldwide acceleration of mountain erosion under a cooling climate

Herman, Frédéric, Seward, Diane, Valla, Pierre G., Carter, Andrew, Kohn, Barry, Willett, Sean D., Ehlers, Todd A.·2013·Nature

Abstract

Climate influences the erosion processes acting at the Earth's surface. However, the effect of cooling during the Late Cenozoic era, including the onset of Pliocene-Pleistocene Northern Hemisphere glaciation (about two to three million years ago), on global erosion rates remains unclear. The uncertainty arises mainly from a lack of consensus on the use of the sedimentary record as a proxy for erosion and the difficulty of isolating the respective contributions of tectonics and climate to erosion. Here we compile 18,000 bedrock thermochronometric ages from around the world and use a formal inversion procedure to estimate temporal and spatial variations in erosion rates. This allows for the quantification of erosion for the source areas that ultimately produce the sediment record on a timescale of millions of years. We find that mountain erosion rates have increased since about six million years ago and most rapidly since two million years ago. The increase of erosion rates is observed at all latitudes, but is most pronounced in glaciated mountain ranges, indicating that glacial processes played an important part. Because mountains represent a considerable fraction of the global production of sediments, our results imply an increase in sediment flux at a global scale that coincides closely with enhanced cooling during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/nature12877

Cites

61 of 61 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 62 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Herman, F., Seward, D., Valla, P. G., Carter, A., Kohn, B., Willett, S. D., & Ehlers, T. A.
Affiliations
  • ETH Zurich (CH)
  • Victoria University of Wellington (NZ)
  • Birkbeck, University of London (GB)
  • The University of Melbourne (AU)
  • University of Tübingen (DE)
Corresponding author
Herman, Frédéric
Venue
Nature
Published
2013-12
Volume
504
Issue
7480
Pages
423-426
ISSN
  • 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
  • 1476-4687
OpenAlex
W2092805274
Cited by
558
References
62
Citations by year
2026: 37 · 2025: 39 · 2024: 48 · 2023: 46 · 2022: 54 · 2021: 59 · 2020: 51 · 2019: 38 · 2018: 41 · 2017: 43 · 2016: 38 · 2015: 40 · 2014: 21 · 2013: 2 · 2012: 1
FWCI
33.48
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
  • Nature (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • BIROn (Birkbeck, University of London) (submittedVersion)
  • UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
  • IRIS (submittedVersion)
  • SERVAL (Université de Lausanne) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
  • Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Geophysics › Geological and Geochemical Analysis
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
  • Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Earth-Surface Processes › Geological formations and processes
Keywords
Northern Hemisphere glaciation, Plio-Pleistocene, sediment flux, glacial erosion

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review