Campus Units

Geological and Atmospheric Sciences

Document Type

Article

Publication Version

Published Version

Publication Date

11-2014

Journal or Book Title

GSA Today

Volume

24

Issue

11

First Page

4

Last Page

10

DOI

10.1130/GSATG203A.1

Abstract

Tuolumne Meadows, in Yosemite National Park (USA), is a large sub-alpine meadow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Immediately adjacent to Tuolumne Meadows—and underlain by the same bedrock lithology (Cathedral Peak Granodiorite)—are vertical rock faces that provide exceptional opportunities to climbers. While the presence of a broad meadow suggests bedrock erodibility, the vertical rock walls indicate bedrock durability. We propose that the Tuolumne Meadows’s landscape is the result of variable glacial erosion due to the presence or absence of pre-existing bedrock fractures. The meadows and valleys formed because of concentrated tabular fracture clusters—a distinctive and locally pervasive type of fracturing—that were particularly susceptible to glacial erosion. In contrast, the vertical rock walls consist of sparsely fractured bedrock that was originally bounded by zones of pervasive tabular fracture clusters. Glacial erosion preferentially removed the highly fractured rock, forming prominent ridges in the upland surrounding Tuolumne Meadows. The orientation and spacing of the tabular fracture clusters, relative to ice flow, has exerted a fundamental control on the geomorphology of the area. The erosional variability exhibited by a single lithology indicates that the degree of fracturing can be more important than the host lithology in controlling landscape evolution.

Comments

This article is from GSA Today 24 (2014): 4, doi:10.1130/GSATG203A.1. Posted with permission.

Rights

Creative Commons Attribution license.

Copyright Owner

Geological Society of America

Language

en

File Format

app

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