Colorado River Choronostratigraphy at Lee\u27s Ferry, Arizona, and the Colorado Plateau Bull\u27s-Eye of Incision: REPLY

Karlstrom et al. (2013) raise two issues in their Comment related to aspects of the discussion in our paper (Pederson et al., 2013) about the Lee’s Ferry record and incision in the Colorado Plateau. We synthesize evidence for the bull’s-eye pattern of incision over the past 105 yr, finding that it does not match spatial patterns of river steepness, stream power, or proposed mantle sources of uplift. Karlstrom et al. (2013) express no concerns with these findings. Instead, their first issue is that longer-time-scale incision may have a different pattern, which may or may not be the case. Their second point expresses doubt that isostatic rebound would significantly increase incision rates in the central plateau, which seems based upon an erroneous geometric argument. Their Comment highlights two of their new papers, and we appreciate the opportunity to contribute to ongoing debates about the patterns of topography and erosion and how they relate to any active deformation, other baselevel controls, and bedrock erodability