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Dr Thomas Stevens
Cenozoic river evolution
The last 65 million years sees many of the world's rivers form or evolve into their present form, especially during the last 2.5 million years of the Quaternary Ice Age. My research uses sediment provenance, age-dating, and other techniques to understand the formation of rivers in the Cenozoic, and how they have interacted with humans, landscape, and climate.
Europe
Stevens, T., Baykal, Y., 2021. Detrital zircon U-Pb ages and source of the late Palaeocene Thanet Formation, Kent, SE England. Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association 132, 240-248.
Asia
Li, Y., Meng, X., Stevens, T., Armitage, S., Bian, S., Chen, G., He, J., 2021. Distinct periods of fan aggradation and incision for tributary valleys of different sizes along the Bailong River, eastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau. Geomorphology 373, 107490.
Wang, Z., Nie, J., Wang, J., Zhang, H., Peng, W., Garzanti, E., Hu, X., Stevens, T., Pfaff, K., Pan, B., 2019. Testing contrasting models of the formation of the upper Yellow River using heavy-mineral data from the Yinchuan Basin drill cores. Geophysical Research Letters 46, 10338-10345.
Nie, J., Ruetenik, G., Gallagher, K., Hoke, G., Garzione, C., Wang, W., Stockli, D., Hu, X., Wang, Z., Wang, Y., Stevens, T., Danisik, M., Liu, S., 2018. Rapid incision of the Mekong River in the middle Miocene linked to monsoonal precipitation. Nature Geosciences 11, 944-948.
Li, Y., Armitage, S.J., Stevens, T., Meng, X., 2018. Alluvial fan aggradation/incision history of the eastern Tibetan plateau margin and implications for debris flow/debris-charged flood hazard. Geomorphology 318, 203-216.
Giosan, L., Naing, T., Tun, M.M., Clift, P.D., Filip, F., Constantinescu, S., Khonde, N., Blusztajn, J., Buylaert, J.P., Stevens, T., Thwin, S., 2018. On the Holocene Evolution of the Ayeyawady Megadelta. Earth Surface Dynamics 6, 451-466.
Nie, J., Stevens, T., Rittner, M., Stockli, D., Garzanti, E., Limonta, M., Bird, A., Ando, S., Vermeesch, P., Saylor, J., Lu, H., Breecker, D., Hu, X., Liu, S., Resentini, A., Vezzoli, G., Peng, W., Carter, A., Ji, S., Pan, B., 2015. Loess Plateau storage of Northeastern Tibetan Plateau derived Yellow River sediment. Nature Communications 6, 8511.
Stevens, T., Carter, A., Watson, T.P., Vermeesch, P., Andò, S., Bird, A.F., Lu, H., Garzanti, E., Cottam, M.A., Sevastjanova, I., 2013. Genetic linkage between the Yellow River, the Mu Us desert and the Chinese Loess Plateau. Quaternary Science Reviews 78, 355-368.
Giosan, L., Clift, P.D., Macklin, M.G., Fuller, D.Q., Constantinescu, S., Durcan, J.A., Stevens, T., Duller, G.A.T., Tabrez, A., Gangal, K., Adhikari, R., Alizai, A., Filip, F., VanLaningham, S., Syvitski, J.P.M., 2012. Fluvial dynamics and the fate of Harappan civilisation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 109, E1688-E1694.
Africa
Yang, J., Nie, J., Garzanti, E., Limonta, M., Ando, S., Vermeesch, P., Zhang, H., Hu, X., Wang, Z., Zhao, B., Ncube, L., Stevens, T., Li, M., Li, H., Chen, T., Mioa, Y., Pan, B., 2021. Climatic forcing of Plio-Pleistocene formation of the modern Limpopo River, South Africa. Geophysical Research Letters 48, e2021GL093887.
Europe-Russia-Asia
Költringer, C., Stevens, T., Lindner, M., Baykal, Y., Ghafarpour, A., Khormali, F., Taratunina, N., Kurbanov, R., 2022. Quaternary sediment sources and loess transport pathways in the Black Sea – Caspian Sea region identified by detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology. Global and Planetary Change in press.
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