TY - JOUR
T1 - The development process of the Korean coastal mountain range
T2 - Examination from spatial distribution of knickzones
AU - Byun, Jongmin
AU - Paik, Kyungrock
N1 - Funding Information:
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Jongmin Byun was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2018S1A5A8031058). Kyungrock Paik was supported by the NRF grant funded by the Korea government (Ministry of Science and ICT) (NRF-2018R1A2B2005772).
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.
PY - 2021/8
Y1 - 2021/8
N2 - Along the eastern margin of the Korean Peninsula, a coastal mountain range spanning over 800 km with summits above 1500 m faces the East Sea (or Sea of Japan), the back-arc sea behind the Japanese Islands. Two contrasting hypotheses exist regarding the tectonic history of this coastal mountain range: long-lasting and progressive uplifts from the Early Tertiary to the Late Quaternary, and a short and intensive uplift during the Early Miocene. However, to date, no consensus has been reached. Here, we studied the spatial distribution of knickzones to understand the formation period and development pattern of this coastal mountain range. We extracted the knickzones in a drainage basin from digital elevation models, and investigated whether or not they are transient knickzones induced by the development of the coastal mountain range. We found that all identified knickzones were stationary, which was verified by slope-area and chi-elevation analyses. This implies that sufficient time has passed for all transient knickzones relevant to the growth of the mountain range to migrate up to the catchment boundary and disappear. We then calculated the time spent for the migration of transient knickzones from the outlet to their stream heads to be at least 5.1 to 10.6 Myr. Therefore, our results suggest that the current form of the coastal mountain range had been built at least before 5.1 Myr ago and has reached a quasi-equilibrium state up to the present, thus invalidating the prevailing hypothesis of the long-lasting and progressive development until the Late Quaternary.
AB - Along the eastern margin of the Korean Peninsula, a coastal mountain range spanning over 800 km with summits above 1500 m faces the East Sea (or Sea of Japan), the back-arc sea behind the Japanese Islands. Two contrasting hypotheses exist regarding the tectonic history of this coastal mountain range: long-lasting and progressive uplifts from the Early Tertiary to the Late Quaternary, and a short and intensive uplift during the Early Miocene. However, to date, no consensus has been reached. Here, we studied the spatial distribution of knickzones to understand the formation period and development pattern of this coastal mountain range. We extracted the knickzones in a drainage basin from digital elevation models, and investigated whether or not they are transient knickzones induced by the development of the coastal mountain range. We found that all identified knickzones were stationary, which was verified by slope-area and chi-elevation analyses. This implies that sufficient time has passed for all transient knickzones relevant to the growth of the mountain range to migrate up to the catchment boundary and disappear. We then calculated the time spent for the migration of transient knickzones from the outlet to their stream heads to be at least 5.1 to 10.6 Myr. Therefore, our results suggest that the current form of the coastal mountain range had been built at least before 5.1 Myr ago and has reached a quasi-equilibrium state up to the present, thus invalidating the prevailing hypothesis of the long-lasting and progressive development until the Late Quaternary.
KW - East Sea
KW - Knickzone
KW - Korean Peninsula
KW - Taebaek Mountain Range
KW - back-arc basin
KW - coastal mountain range
KW - passive continental margin
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85097419330&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0309133320975654
DO - 10.1177/0309133320975654
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85097419330
VL - 45
SP - 541
EP - 563
JO - Progress in Physical Geography
JF - Progress in Physical Geography
SN - 0309-1333
IS - 4
ER -