The role of frost cracking in local denudation of steep Alpine rockwalls over millennia (Eiger, Switzerland)

Mair, David; Lechmann, Alessandro; Delunel, Romain; Yeşilyurt, Serdar; Tikhomirov, Dmitry; Vockenhuber, Christof; Christl, Marcus; Akçar, Naki; Schlunegger, Fritz

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-8-637-2020

Articles | Volume 8, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-8-637-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-8-637-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 8, issue 3

Research article

|

17 Jul 2020

Research article |

| 17 Jul 2020

The role of frost cracking in local denudation of steep Alpine rockwalls over millennia (Eiger, Switzerland)

David Mair, Alessandro Lechmann, Romain Delunel, Serdar Yeşilyurt, Dmitry Tikhomirov, Christof Vockenhuber, Marcus Christl, Naki Akçar, and Fritz Schlunegger

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Final revised paper (published on 17 Jul 2020)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 29 Oct 2019)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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RC1: 'Reviwer Comment to "The role of frost cracking in local denudation of steep Alpine headwalls over millennia (Mt. Eiger, Switzerland)"', Anonymous Referee #1, 21 Nov 2019
- AC1: 'Response to reviewer comment 1 (RC1)', David Mair, 14 Feb 2020
RC2: 'Mair et al. The role of frost cracking in local denudation of steep Alpine headwalls over millennia (Mt. Eiger, Switzerland)', Anonymous Referee #2, 29 Nov 2019
- AC2: 'Response to reviewer comment 2 (RC2)', David Mair, 14 Feb 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

AR by David Mair on behalf of the Authors (20 Mar 2020) Author's response

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (26 Mar 2020) by Andreas Lang

RR by Daniel Draebing (20 Apr 2020)

RR by Steven Binnie (20 Apr 2020)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

2nd review of Mair et al.

I reviewed an earlier version of this manuscript and the authors have made notable changes in response to earlier comments. I have a few points to make on this revised version. Though these are fairly minor I hope they will be found to be useful and implemented.

Regarding new data presented here and in comparison to the earlier version, the emphasis has been taken away from the cosmogenic nuclide data in the single profile (EW01) and placed more on the frost cracking modelling results, which I think is a sensible approach. The restructuring is an improvement, though I don’t think the addition of the paragraph at the end of the setting section, already giving the sampling/results of the new profile, is appropriate. This is already discussing methods and results from new data, albeit with the disclaimer that this data may be considered to have too low concentrations to be robust. This could be dealt with better, perhaps keep the discussion of Mair (2019) in the background section, but have the text on methods/results in the approriate sections.

There are a few occasions (L343/345/375, caption of Fig 1, and perhaps others?) where the authors discuss ‘our cosmogenic data’, or ‘our cosmogenic sampling sites’. This is presumably mainly the erosion rates from the same lead author’s earlier study (Mair 2019?) and this should be made clear and properly referenced, otherwise it sounds as though the data was presented in this manuscript.

L267/268 1 standard deviation uncertainties?

L425 Is the minimum exposure age equivalent to the denudation rate averaging time? It needs to be made more specific as to what is meant here by modelled minimum exposure age, apparent minimum exposure age? The Mair 2019 paper is (again) referenced here, but as I noted in the first review, I don’t think the reader should have to read other papers to understand the basics of what is being presented here.

L448 The conclusions begin with Be and Cl erosion rates. New Cl data is not presented here. The first few sentences of the conclusions discuss denudation rates that are either from another study or hard to interpret/less robust in the case of the Be data. The conclusions should better reflect the new paper structure.

L477 A couple of questions about the blank- First why is 35Cl is mentioned on this line? It should be 9Be I guess, but please check the values are for Be spike and not Cl. Second, the authors helpfully supplied a table of lab blank information in their response to earlier comments. In line 476 they note the relative weighted uncertainty of ~18% of the long-term blank. Is this the standard deviation? In the aforementioned table I think this is referred to as the variance of the variance weighted data, but also standard errors are noted… Please be clear what the uncertainty in L475 refers to.

L485 How is it that with high uncertainties low concentrations allow for meaningful results?

L506/507/513/533/550 (and possibly other instances) As I understand it, the authors consider nuclides produced by muons at depth from earlier periods of slower/stagnant erosion as an ‘inherited’ component. This to me is confusing terminology and should be relabeled. Perhaps it comes from the Hidy 2010 profile modeler (I think this code has been used here?), but I would also point out that this model was not developed with bedrock profiles in mind but for sedimentary deposits, where ‘inheritance’ due to pre depositional clast transport is likely. The problem the authors face here is not inheritance but instead non-steady state erosion.

Minor editing-
L83 extents not extends
L129 handheld not handhold
L290/293 check tenses- ‘has’ in L290 and ‘have’ in L293?
L355 through not trough
L469 from not form
Fig 1/7 Eiger profiles easier to follow if they have consistent orientation (e.g. both Fig 1 and Fig 7 should have SE on the left and NW to the right).

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (28 Apr 2020) by Andreas Lang

AR by David Mair on behalf of the Authors (07 May 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (01 Jun 2020) by Andreas Lang

ED: Publish as is (02 Jun 2020) by Tom Coulthard (Editor)

AR by David Mair on behalf of the Authors (07 Jun 2020)