Inner gorge–slot canyon system produced by repeated stream incision (eastern Alps): Significance for development of bedrock canyons

Many inner bedrock gorges of the Alps show abrupt downstream changes in gorge width, as well as channel type and gradient, as a result of epigenetic incision of slot canyons. Many slot canyons also are associated with older gorge reaches filled with Quaternary deposits. The age of slot canyons and inner bedrock gorges, however, commonly is difficult to constrain. For the inner-bedrock gorge system of the Steinberger Ache catchment (eastern Alps), active slot canyons as well as older, abandoned gorge reaches filled with upper Würmian proglacial deposits record three phases of gorge development and slot–canyon incision. A 234U/230Th age of cement of 29.7 ± 1.8 ka in fluvial conglomerates onlapping the flank of an inner gorge fits with late Würmian valley-bottom aggradation shortly before pleniglacial conditions; in addition, the age indicates that at least the corresponding canyon reach must be older. During advance of ice streams in the buildup of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), the catchment was blocked, and a proglacial lake formed. Bedrock gorges submerged in that lake were filled with fluviolacustrine deposits. During the LGM, the entire catchment was overridden by ice. post-glacial reincision, streams largely found again their preexisting inner bedrock canyons. In some areas, however, the former stream course was ‘missed’, and a slot canyon formed. The distribution of Pleistocene deposits, the patterns of canyon incision, and the mentioned U/Th cementation age, however, together record a further discrete phase of base-level rise and stream incision well before the LGM. The present course of Steinberger Ache and its tributaries is a patchwork of (1) slot canyons incised during post-glacial incision; (2) vestiges of slot canyons cut upon an earlier (middle to late Würmian?) cycle of base-level rise and fall; (3) reactivated reaches up to ~ 200 m in width of inner bedrock gorge that are watershed at present, and more than at least ~ 30 ka in age; and (4) abandoned, sediment-filled reaches of bedrock canyons that also must be older than 30 ka and that are exposed alongside the active streams. ‘Multi-cyclic’ bedrock canyon systems composed of reaches of markedly different ages may be common in mountain ranges subject to glaciations and/or mass wasting.