3.7.5 Objectives and future work
The main objectives of TOPO-EUROPE research in the Greater Caucasus natural laboratory, which is unique world wide, are to understand the relationship between tectonics, basin/margin evolution and surface processes, and to establish the chronology of major tectonic events and related changes in topography and geomorphology. Structures and processes active today will be compared with structures revealing paleo-interactions at a passive/active plate boundary.
Detailed fieldwork with special attention to tectonic geomorphology, combined with remote sensing, will permit to establish a new framework for assessing the Cenozoic tectonic history and dynamic processes controlling its evolution.
Tectonic topography is important in the aftermath of continental collision and continued convergence. Indeed, processes operating during the Neogene and Quaternary are understood to have been most influential in generating the present-day topography. The controls on rates of river incision into bedrock (including cannibalizing their own deposits) are largely dictated by relationships between climate, lithology, tectonics, and topography. To understand dynamic topography in the Greater Caucasus it is crucial to be able to discriminate and quantify the different uplift events and the related uplift/erosion rates. How does the source-sink system evolve through time?
A pilot study on the Greater Caucasus will be initiated to investigate its uplift history and the interaction of tectonic and surface processes, using modern techniques such as apatite fission track and cosmogenic nuclides. The study will address actively incised terraces, indicative for important post-depositional uplift (in excess of several hundreds of meters). Age dating of these terraces will permit to quantify the magnitude and rates of uplift. Key areas for sampling will be selected based on remote sensing investigations and exploratory fieldwork to locate suitable outcrops.
Numerical simulations and analogical modelling are unique tools to evaluate the relationship between tectonic and surface processes and to compare results to observations on the interaction of erosion and thrusting.
Future work in the Levant and the adjacent Eastern Mediterranean area will concentrate on detailed studies addressing the timing of uplift and the development of topography, and comparisons with similar phenomena that occurred in Europe. Scientists from various fields, such as geophysics, field geology and geochemistry, coming from the Middle East and Europe, will be involved in these studies.