• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.55 no.5
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• pp.541-550
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• 2022

A pre-existing landform is created by weathering and erosion along the bedrock fault and the weak zone. A neotectonic landform is formed by neotectonic movements such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and Quaternary faults. It is difficult to clearly distinguish the landform in the actual field because the influence of the tectonic activity in the Korean Peninsula is relatively small, and the magnitude of surface processes (e.g., erosion and weathering) is intense. Thus, to better understand the impact of tectonic activity and distinguish between pre-existing landforms and neotectonic landforms, it is necessary to understand the development process of pre-existing landforms depending on the bedrock characteristics. This study used a two-dimensional numerical landscape evolution model (LEM) to study the spatio-temporal development of landscape according to the different erodibility under the same factors of climate and the uplift rate. We used hill-slope indices (i.e., relief, mean elevation, and slope) and channels (i.e., longitudinal profile, normalized channel steepness index, and stream order) to distinguish the difference according to different bedrocks. As a result of the analysis, the terrain with high erosion potential shows low mean elevation, gentle slope, low stream order, and channel steepness index. However, the value of the landscape with low erosion potential differs from that with high erodibility. In addition, a knickpoint came out at the boundary of the bedrock. When researching the actual topography, the location around the border of difference in bedrock has only been considered a pre-existing factor. This study suggested that differences in bedrock and various topographic indices should be comprehensively considered to classify pre-existing and active tectonic topography.