TY  - JOUR
A1  - Landgraf, Angela
A1  - Zielke, Olaf
A1  - Arrowsmith, J. Ramón
A1  - Ballato, Paolo
A1  - Strecker, Manfred
A1  - Schildgen, Taylor F.
A1  - Friedrich, Anke M.
A1  - Tabatabaei, Sayyed-Hassan
T1  - Differentiating simple and composite tectonic landscapes using numerical fault slip modeling with an example from the south central Alborz Mountains, Iran
JF  - Journal of geophysical research : Earth surface
N2  - The tectonically driven growth of mountains reflects the characteristics of the underlying fault systems and the applied tectonic forces. Over time, fault networks might be relatively static, but stress conditions could change and result in variations in fault slip orientation. Such a tectonic landscape would transition from a simple to a composite state: the topography of simple landscapes is correlated with a single set of tectonic boundary conditions, while composite landscapes contain inherited topography due to earlier deformation under different boundary conditions. We use fault interaction modeling to compare vertical displacement fields with topographic metrics to differentiate the two types of landscapes. By successively rotating the axis of maximum horizontal stress, we produce a suite of vertical displacement fields for comparison with real landscapes. We apply this model to a transpressional duplex in the south central Alborz Mountains of Iran, where NW oriented compression was superseded by neotectonic NE compression. The consistency between the modeled displacement field and real landforms indicates that the duplex topography is mostly compatible with the modern boundary conditions, but might include a small remnant from the earlier deformation phase. Our approach is applicable for various tectonic settings and represents an approach to identify the changing boundary conditions that produce composite landscapes. It may be particularly useful for identifying changes that occurred in regions where river profiles may no longer record a signal of the change or where the spatial pattern of uplift is complex.
KW  - fault interaction
KW  - landscape evolution
KW  - numerical modeling
KW  - Alborz Mountains
KW  - Iran
Y1  - 2013
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/jgrf.20109
SN  - 2169-9003
SN  - 2169-9011
VL  - 118
IS  - 3
SP  - 1792
EP  - 1805
PB  - American Geophysical Union
CY  - Washington
ER  -