Mobility and Location of Drainage Divides Affected by Tilting Uplift in Sado Island, Japan

Abstract

Drainage divide is a dynamic feature that migrates in response to tectonic activity. The asymmetric uplift between two adjacent basins causes the divide migration from a slower to faster uplift area. Sado Island, Japan, has been affected by southeastward tilting uplift for ca. 300k years. Despite the faster uplift on the northwest, the main divides have existed on the southeast side of the geometric center of the island, with no other feature suggesting tectonic inversion of the tilting direction. In this study, we conducted a digital elevation model (DEM) based investigation that focused on divide migration. A spectrum from very inactive to active divide migration in the northwest. Regardless of their position, actively migrating divides are comprehensible, but inactive divides located in a relatively slow uplift area remain unclear. We concluded that some divides slowed down owing to the local balance of erosion rates across the divides, which does not imply balance between uplift and river erosion at the basin scale, reflecting disequilibrium in river longitudinal profiles. The main divides of Sado have presumably continued to slowly migrate toward the area of faster uplift; however, they are most likely to have never overcome the moving geometric center owing to land expansion at the seacoast due to asymmetric uplift.