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In this study, we investigate how immersive 3D geovisualization can be used in higher education. Based on MacEachren and Kraak's geovisualization cube, we examine the usage of immersive 3D geovisualization and its usefulness in a research-based learning module on flood risk, called GEOSimulator. Results of a survey among participating students reveal benefits, such as better orientation in the study area, higher interactivity with the data, improved discourse among students and enhanced motivation through immersive 3D geovisualization. This suggests that immersive 3D visualization can effectively be used in higher education and that 3D CAVE settings enhance interactive learning between students.
Thick sedimentary fills in intermontane valleys are common in formerly glaciated mountain ranges but difficult to quantify. Yet knowledge of the fill thickness distribution could help to estimate sediment budgets of mountain belts and to decipher the role of stored material in modulating sediment flux from the orogen to the foreland. Here we present a new approach to estimate valley fill thickness and bedrock topography based on the geometric properties of a landscape using artificial neural networks. We test the potential of this approach following a four-tiered procedure. First, experiments with synthetic, idealized landscapes show that increasing variability in surface slopes requires successively more complex network configurations. Second, in experiments with artificially filled natural landscapes, we find that fill volumes can be estimated with an error below 20%. Third, in natural examples with valley fill surfaces that have steeply inclined slopes, such as the Unteraar and the Rhone Glaciers in the Swiss Alps, for example, the average deviation of cross-sectional area between the measured and the modeled valley fill is 26% and 27%, respectively. Finally, application of the method to the Rhone Valley, an overdeepened glacial valley in the Swiss Alps, yields a total estimated sediment volume of 9711km(3) and an average deviation of cross-sectional area between measurements and model estimates of 21.5%. Our new method allows for rapid assessment of sediment volumes in intermontane valleys while eliminating most of the subjectivity that is typically inherent in other methods where bedrock reconstructions are based on digital elevation models.
The topographic signature of a mountain belt depends on the interplay of tectonic, climatic and erosional processes, whose relative importance changes over times, while quantifying these processes and their rates at specific times remains a challenge. The eastern Andes of central Bolivia offer a natural laboratory in which such interplay has been debated. Here, we investigate the Rio Grande catchment which crosses orthogonally the eastern Andes orogen from the Eastern Cordillera into the Subandean Zone, exhibiting a catchment relief of up to 5000 m. Despite an enhanced tectonic activity in the Subandes, local relief, mean and modal slopes and channel steepness indices are largely similar compared to the Eastern Cordillera and the intervening Interandean Zone. Nevertheless, a dataset of 57 new cosmogenic 10Be and 26AI catchment wide denudation rates from the Rio Grande catchment reveals up to one order of magnitude higher denudation rates in the Subandean Zone (mean 0.8 mm/yr) compared to the upstream physiographic regions. We infer that tectonic activity in the thrusting dominated Subandean belt causes higher denudation rates based on cumulative rock uplift investigations and due to the absence of a pronounced climate gradient. Furthermore, the lower rock strength of the Subandean sedimentary units correlates with mean slopes similar to the ones of the Eastern Cordillera and Interandean Zone, highlighting the fact, that lithology and rock strength can control high denudation rates at low slopes.
Low denudation rates measured at the outlet of the Rio Grande catchment (Abapo) are interpreted to be a result of a biased cosmogenic nuclide mixing that is dominated by headwater signals from the Eastern Cordillera and the Interandean zone and limited catchment sediment connectivity in the lower river reaches. Therefore, comparisons of short- (i.e., sediment yield) and millennial denudation rates require caution when postulating tectonic and/or climatic forcing without detailed studies. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.