Comment on Frechen et al. 'Late Pleistocene fluvial dynamics in the Hoehrhein Valle and in the Upper Rhine Graben:chronological frame'

摘要

The River Rhine connects the areas of the Alpine and Scandinavian glaciation and follows part of the European Cenozoic Rift System (cf. Preusser 2008). As a consequence, deposits of the River Rhine are important archives for reconstructing both the environmental and the tectonic history along one of the most heavily populated regions of our planet. Establishing chronologies for fluvial deposits of the Quaternary period has become available through the dating of sediment deposition ages using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) (cf. Wallinga 2002a). In this context, the paper by Frechen et al. (2010), as well as the related publication by Lammermann-Barthel et al. (2009), is a contribution towards a better understanding of forcing factors behind deposition and incision in fluvial systems. However, we have observed one crucial flaw in the experimental design, which has probably led to a significant overestimation of the OSL ages reported by Frechen et al. (2010) and thus consequently led Lammermann-Barthel et al. (2009) to an inappropriate interpretation of the fluvial dynamics.