© Syracuse University
Devin McPhillips is a research associate in the Department of Earth Sciences.
A geologist in Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences has demonstrated that earthquakes - not climate change, as previously thought - affect the rate of landslides in Peru.
The finding is the subject of an article in
Nature Geoscience by Devin McPhillips, a research associate in the Department of Earth Sciences. He co-wrote the article with Paul Bierman, professor of geology at The University of Vermont; and Dylan Rood, a lecturer at Imperial College London (U.K.).
"Geologic records of landslide activity offer rare glimpses into landscapes evolving under the influence of tectonics and climate," says McPhillips, whose expertise includes geomorphology and tectonics. "Because deposits from individual landslides are unlikely to be preserved, it's difficult to reconstruct landslide activity in the geologic past. Therefore, we've developed a method that measures landslide activity before and after the last glacial-interglacial climate transition in Peru."
McPhillips and his team have spent the past several years in the Western Andes Mountains, studying cobbles in the Quebrada Veladera river channel and in an adjacent fill terrace. By measuring the amount of a nuclide known as Beryllium-10 (Be-10) in each area's cobble population, they've been able to calculate erosion rates over tens of thousands of years.
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