TY - JOUR

T1 - A numerical terrain analysis of the morphodynamic evolution of shelf-edge landforms proximal to a modern fold belt (NW Cuba)

T2 - Isostacy versus climate

AU - Dill, Harald G.

AU - Buzatu, Andrei

AU - Balaban, Sorin Ionut

AU - Heimhofer, Ulrich

AU - Rüscher, Claus

AU - Dultz, Stefan

AU - Hoffman, Leon

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

PY - 2025/12/15

Y1 - 2025/12/15

N2 - The compositional numerical terrain analysis is a mixtum composition of geomorphology dealing with the surface expression and mineralogy, sedimentology and biosedimentology of the body of landforms from marine coastal marine to mountainous regions. The prospects of gaining good results are very much alive in Cenozoic lithological series such as the Archipiélago de los Canarreos (ADC), NW Cuba, bounding with its landforms series the Gulf of Batabanó versus the Yucatan Basin, two geodynamically rather mobile shelf areas at the strait from the Gulf of Mexico into the Caribbean Sea. From the Plio-Pleistocene and the Recent tremendous changes affected this landscape in NW Cuba, leaving behind myriads of rather flat island called in English “keys” and in Spanish “cayos”. While the keys in the Gulf of Mexico are looked at from a great variety of angles e.g., Key Largo, the eponymous ones of the Caribbean Sea such as Cayo Largo del Sur got geo-scientifically eclipsed. This is not justified, because the origin of the “cayos” is much more complex and the current compositional numerical terrain analytical studies, which is fully satellite-based and supported by ground-truthing, qualify the ADC for being the locus typicus of this flat island-type situated within the tropical climate zones at the edge of a modern fold belt the onset of which dates back to the formation of the oceanic Proto-Yucatan Basin from the Late Jurassic to the Mid-Cretaceous.Four landform indices established (1)VerticalSinuosity ofValleys (VeSival), (2)VerticalSinuosity -Lithology index (VeSilith) -Mean, (3)DensityDistribution ofValleys(DeDival),(4)HorizontalOrientation of linear geomorphological elements-(e.g.valleys)(HoOrval)have proved to be most reliable when it comes to the subdivision of the archipelago and for a detailed investigation of the evolution of its various landforms. The compartmentation of the shelf-edge landform series of the ADC lead to a western zone, a natural embankment terminating the gulf that is under decay into individual barrier islands lined up like pearls on a string as a result of (sub) marine hydrodynamic processes. By contrast, its eastern counterpart was mainly shaped by morphotectonic processes associated in time and space with movements along deep-seated NE-SW striking lineamentary fault zones bounding the Gulf of Batabanó and intersecting the main island of the Greater Antilles, Cuba. These motions were conducive to a series of islands displaying strikingly unconformable longshore-driven multiple beach ridges, channels running perpendicular to them and widespread coastal marine wetlands of great hydrodynamic diversity. A large island, La Isla de le Juventud, amidst of the two branches striking WNW to W forms a hub with lagoons and skerries along its eastern shoreline and bays and potholes (“bracke” = breakthrough of embankments) on its western side. This hub shares the same features of geodynamic mobility as its smaller “brethren”. It is not only a divide in space but faced another tripartite subdivision in time when climate and geodynamic processes interacted resulting in the outward geomorphic appearance of the present ADC.After a Paleogene-Neogene prestage during which a tower- or conic karst landscape evolved under humid tropical conditions a climatic and hydrodynamically driven landscape evolution began during the Plio-Pleistocene (3.6–0.8 Ma). In the waning stages of the three-dimensional tower- or conic karst stage (3-D), a 2-D karst with flat dolines, sinkholes and a 1-D karst (rillen and kluftkarren) that are governed in their prevalence by NW-SW oriented morphotectonic processes and pathways of hydraulic effectiveness came into existence. An abrupt temperature drop accompanied by an increased run-off with alluvial-fluvial deposits paved the way into a period of time when the seawater table underwent strong fluctuation with a marked negative trend. This was due to the Laurentide and Antarctic Ice Sheet Glaciation until the Late Pleistocene. During the Holocene these phenomena were not only grinded to a halt but reversed as attest to by a rapidly rising temperature along with the sheet deglaciation. These atmospheric changes had an utmost impact on the individual landforms in all three compartments of the ADC.They had not only the most pronounced impact on the landforms persisting until today but were also conducive to the binary subdivision of landforms. The primary hydrodynamic landform series, e.g., spits, beach ridges, and tombolos are the most widespread ones whereas secondary landforms, e.g., flooded and vegetated swales, ferricretes, and perennial and ephemeral lacustrine depressions are only of local relevance and, in places, relic forms.Terrain analysis is applicable on a global scale and can provide solutions in mobile geodynamic shelf areas under all climate regimes from the Antarctic peninsula to Spitzbergen for applied and genetic geosciences. In terms of isostacy, be it hydrological or glacial driven, or the impact of the regional climate on the shaping of the landscape it can contribute compositional and numerical data. The deeper the potential drivers, however, e.g., mantle plumes, metamorphic processes, the more the method is stretched to its very limits and in this case it can only offer alternative interpretations and reach out for different geoscientific sister disciplines to follow up in search of solutions.It has to be tested during facies and environment analysis of marine lithologies whether thin, calcareous seams arranged in a sandwich-like manner within lithologs of the geological past can be interpreted as paleo-cayos based upon this numerical and compositional terrain analysis of Neogene strata.Therefore the key elements of the islands and their origin are summarized in brief: “Los cayos de Noroeste de Cuba” form a peculiar type/reference type of elongated flat-top islands with spits, channels connected with open and sealed-off lagoons which are underlain by prevailing calcareous biodetrital or reefal substrate. They are facies bound forming a mirror image of a periodically and episodically flooded geodynamically instable shelf at the edge of modern active fold belts at an intermediate position between positive landforms of the relic landscape of the tower or conical karst one side and the abyssal plain of an oceanic basin on the opposite one. They are timebound to the period between the Plio-Pleistocene and the Holocene, and are climate-driven as a consequence of climatic transition from a tropical humid to a glacial climate with strongly fluctuating temperatures.

AB - The compositional numerical terrain analysis is a mixtum composition of geomorphology dealing with the surface expression and mineralogy, sedimentology and biosedimentology of the body of landforms from marine coastal marine to mountainous regions. The prospects of gaining good results are very much alive in Cenozoic lithological series such as the Archipiélago de los Canarreos (ADC), NW Cuba, bounding with its landforms series the Gulf of Batabanó versus the Yucatan Basin, two geodynamically rather mobile shelf areas at the strait from the Gulf of Mexico into the Caribbean Sea. From the Plio-Pleistocene and the Recent tremendous changes affected this landscape in NW Cuba, leaving behind myriads of rather flat island called in English “keys” and in Spanish “cayos”. While the keys in the Gulf of Mexico are looked at from a great variety of angles e.g., Key Largo, the eponymous ones of the Caribbean Sea such as Cayo Largo del Sur got geo-scientifically eclipsed. This is not justified, because the origin of the “cayos” is much more complex and the current compositional numerical terrain analytical studies, which is fully satellite-based and supported by ground-truthing, qualify the ADC for being the locus typicus of this flat island-type situated within the tropical climate zones at the edge of a modern fold belt the onset of which dates back to the formation of the oceanic Proto-Yucatan Basin from the Late Jurassic to the Mid-Cretaceous.Four landform indices established (1)VerticalSinuosity ofValleys (VeSival), (2)VerticalSinuosity -Lithology index (VeSilith) -Mean, (3)DensityDistribution ofValleys(DeDival),(4)HorizontalOrientation of linear geomorphological elements-(e.g.valleys)(HoOrval)have proved to be most reliable when it comes to the subdivision of the archipelago and for a detailed investigation of the evolution of its various landforms. The compartmentation of the shelf-edge landform series of the ADC lead to a western zone, a natural embankment terminating the gulf that is under decay into individual barrier islands lined up like pearls on a string as a result of (sub) marine hydrodynamic processes. By contrast, its eastern counterpart was mainly shaped by morphotectonic processes associated in time and space with movements along deep-seated NE-SW striking lineamentary fault zones bounding the Gulf of Batabanó and intersecting the main island of the Greater Antilles, Cuba. These motions were conducive to a series of islands displaying strikingly unconformable longshore-driven multiple beach ridges, channels running perpendicular to them and widespread coastal marine wetlands of great hydrodynamic diversity. A large island, La Isla de le Juventud, amidst of the two branches striking WNW to W forms a hub with lagoons and skerries along its eastern shoreline and bays and potholes (“bracke” = breakthrough of embankments) on its western side. This hub shares the same features of geodynamic mobility as its smaller “brethren”. It is not only a divide in space but faced another tripartite subdivision in time when climate and geodynamic processes interacted resulting in the outward geomorphic appearance of the present ADC.After a Paleogene-Neogene prestage during which a tower- or conic karst landscape evolved under humid tropical conditions a climatic and hydrodynamically driven landscape evolution began during the Plio-Pleistocene (3.6–0.8 Ma). In the waning stages of the three-dimensional tower- or conic karst stage (3-D), a 2-D karst with flat dolines, sinkholes and a 1-D karst (rillen and kluftkarren) that are governed in their prevalence by NW-SW oriented morphotectonic processes and pathways of hydraulic effectiveness came into existence. An abrupt temperature drop accompanied by an increased run-off with alluvial-fluvial deposits paved the way into a period of time when the seawater table underwent strong fluctuation with a marked negative trend. This was due to the Laurentide and Antarctic Ice Sheet Glaciation until the Late Pleistocene. During the Holocene these phenomena were not only grinded to a halt but reversed as attest to by a rapidly rising temperature along with the sheet deglaciation. These atmospheric changes had an utmost impact on the individual landforms in all three compartments of the ADC.They had not only the most pronounced impact on the landforms persisting until today but were also conducive to the binary subdivision of landforms. The primary hydrodynamic landform series, e.g., spits, beach ridges, and tombolos are the most widespread ones whereas secondary landforms, e.g., flooded and vegetated swales, ferricretes, and perennial and ephemeral lacustrine depressions are only of local relevance and, in places, relic forms.Terrain analysis is applicable on a global scale and can provide solutions in mobile geodynamic shelf areas under all climate regimes from the Antarctic peninsula to Spitzbergen for applied and genetic geosciences. In terms of isostacy, be it hydrological or glacial driven, or the impact of the regional climate on the shaping of the landscape it can contribute compositional and numerical data. The deeper the potential drivers, however, e.g., mantle plumes, metamorphic processes, the more the method is stretched to its very limits and in this case it can only offer alternative interpretations and reach out for different geoscientific sister disciplines to follow up in search of solutions.It has to be tested during facies and environment analysis of marine lithologies whether thin, calcareous seams arranged in a sandwich-like manner within lithologs of the geological past can be interpreted as paleo-cayos based upon this numerical and compositional terrain analysis of Neogene strata.Therefore the key elements of the islands and their origin are summarized in brief: “Los cayos de Noroeste de Cuba” form a peculiar type/reference type of elongated flat-top islands with spits, channels connected with open and sealed-off lagoons which are underlain by prevailing calcareous biodetrital or reefal substrate. They are facies bound forming a mirror image of a periodically and episodically flooded geodynamically instable shelf at the edge of modern active fold belts at an intermediate position between positive landforms of the relic landscape of the tower or conical karst one side and the abyssal plain of an oceanic basin on the opposite one. They are timebound to the period between the Plio-Pleistocene and the Holocene, and are climate-driven as a consequence of climatic transition from a tropical humid to a glacial climate with strongly fluctuating temperatures.

KW - Landform series

KW - Numerical-compositional terrain analysis

KW - NW Cuba

KW - Quaternary

KW - Shelf

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=105020302412&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.jsames.2025.105803

DO - 10.1016/j.jsames.2025.105803

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:105020302412

VL - 168

JO - Journal of South American Earth Sciences

JF - Journal of South American Earth Sciences

SN - 0895-9811

M1 - 105803

ER -