We investigate the feedbacks between surface processes and tectonics in an extensional setting by coupling a 2-D geodynamical model with a landscape evolution law. Focusing on the evolution of a single normal fault, we show that surface processes significantly enhance the amount of horizontal extension a fault can accommodate before being abandoned in favor of a new fault….This leads us to propose that the major range-bounding normal faults observed in many continental rifts owe their large offsets to erosional and depositional processes.
