3rd Swiss Geoscience Meeting, Zürich, 2005 Surface processes and associated timescales: Cosmogenic nuclide and sediment yield data from the Central Andes of northern Chile

The desert parts of the Andes of northern Chile are regarded as being one of the oldest landscapes on Earth. Therefore, landscape forming processes must act at very slow rates. These slow rates have promoted controversial ideas on the evolution of the central Andean mountain chain and discussions whether climatic or tectonic forces predominate the geodynamic evolution of the Andes (see: Lamb and Davis, 2003; Hartley, 2005). In order to quantify the rates of various landscape forming processes we analyzed erosion rates of hillslope interfluves across the slope of the western Central Andes (Arica area, northern Chile) in a transect from the Coasta