Long-term denudation and topographic relief evolution of Central and Northern Madagascar

The landscape of Central and Northern Madagascar is characterized by residual landforms, steep slopes, and low-relief areas, resulting mainly from the processes of dissection of the central high plateau and retreat of two main topographic scarps on the western and eastern margins of the island. On the western side, the topography is characterized by relict relief and a highly sinuous plateau edge. Conversely, the landscape on the eastern side is dominated by the great topographic escarpment with a linear plateau edge. Locally, this general morphology is perturbed by the formation of the active Alaotra-Ankay rift system, which displaces the plateau-escarpment system. Here, we explore the long-term relief evolution of these three morpho-structural domains (west and east sides and rift sector) by combining denudation rates derived from cosmogenic nuclides and geomorphic stream profile analysis. Our results show that, although the erosional dynamics are dominated by the same processes of plateau dissection and scarp retreat, the topographic features, drainage networks, and distributions of species richness differ within these three domains. We provide insight into the processes that lead to transient landscape and relief evolution of rifted margins.