Sediment size on talus slopes correlates with fracture spacing on bedrock cliffs: implications for predicting initial sediment size distributions on hillslopes

Verdian, Joseph P.; Sklar, Leonard S.; Riebe, Clifford S.; Moore, Jeffrey R.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-9-1073-2021

Articles | Volume 9, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-9-1073-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-9-1073-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 9, issue 4

Research article

|

27 Aug 2021

Research article |

| 27 Aug 2021

Sediment size on talus slopes correlates with fracture spacing on bedrock cliffs: implications for predicting initial sediment size distributions on hillslopes

Joseph P. Verdian, Leonard S. Sklar, Clifford S. Riebe, and Jeffrey R. Moore

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Final revised paper (published on 27 Aug 2021)
Preprint (discussion started on 06 Jul 2020)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

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

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- Supplement

RC1: 'Reviewer comment', Anonymous Referee #1, 04 Aug 2020
- AC1: 'Author reply to RC1', Leonard Sklar, 04 Jan 2021
RC2: 'Review for Verdian et al., “Sediment size on talus slopes correlates with fracture spacing on bedrock cliffs: Implications for predicting initial sediment size distributions on hillslopes”', Anonymous Referee #2, 04 Aug 2020
- AC2: 'Author reply to RC2', Leonard Sklar, 04 Jan 2021

Peer-review completion

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

AR by Leonard Sklar on behalf of the Authors (01 May 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (23 Jun 2021) by Simon Mudd

AR by Leonard Sklar on behalf of the Authors (27 Jun 2021) Author's response Author's tracked changes Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (30 Jun 2021) by Simon Mudd

ED: Publish as is (05 Jul 2021) by Tom Coulthard (Editor)

AR by Leonard Sklar on behalf of the Authors (08 Jul 2021)

Short summary

River behavior depends on the size of rocks they carry. Rocks are born on hillslopes where erosion removes fragments from solid bedrock. To understand what controls the size of rock fragments, we measured the spacing between cracks exposed in 15 bare-rock cliffs and the size of rocks on the ground below. We found that, for each site, the average rock size could be predicted from the average distance between cracks, which varied with rock type. This shows how rock type can influence rivers.