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VII.—Note on the Mean Rate of Subaërial Denudation
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
Extract
In his memoir on “Modern Denudation,” Dr. A. Geikie determined approximately the number of years required by the following seven rivers to lower the general surface of their basins by one foot. He found that the Danube would take 6846 years, the Mississippi 6000, the Nith 4723, the Upper Ganges 2358, the Rhone 1528, the Hoang Ho 1464, and the Po 729, years. The average of these figures is 3378, and “this,” says Dr. Croll, in his recent interesting work on “Stellar Evolution” (p. 41), “gives a mean of 3378 years to remove one foot, or a little over one-half the time taken by the Mississippi.” As the mean rate of subaërial denudation is an important element in physical geology, it may be worth while to point out a slight mistake in this determination of its value, and also to show how a more correct estimate may, with our present data, be obtained.
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References
page 409 note 2 Glasgow, Geol. Soc. Trans., vol. iii. p. 164.Google Scholar
page 410 note 1 Geikie, A., Text Book of Geology, p. 444,Google Scholar footnote. This value is used in the estimate that follows.
page 410 note 2 Reckoning the specific gravity of the silt at 1°9 and that of rock at 2°5. This tends to diminish the estimate of the mean rate of denudation, for the sediment deposited at the mouth of a river is partly derived from the erosion of earthy beds.