Geomorphic Development of the Western Himalayas
Abstract
Evolution of the drainage system of the western Himalayas was controlled by antecedance, superposition, capture, ponding, avulsion, and faulting following collision and suturing of the Kohistan-Ladakh island arc between the Indian and Eurasian Terranes. The Indus River arose sometime in the middle Tertiary from an area of eroded volcanics near Mt. Kailas in Tibet and established a course to an ancestral "Sindh estuarine" embayment about 300 km north of the present delta. Neither the old idea of a northwest-flowing "Indobrahm" river in the Himalayan foredeep, nor the newer postulate of an east-flowing ancestral Indus seem necessary to explain topographic or paleocurrent data that indicate diverse drainage directions. Instead the Indus River seems to have established itself along the axis of the island arc system, and in the Haramosh-Nanga Parbat area it was deflected south in an apparent sinistral sense along the Main Mantle Thrust. Subsequent reversal of motion produced a later dextral offset along the Raikot fault. The river was deflected similarly as it crosses the Kalabagh fault through the Salt Range.
Consideration of relations between uplift rates and erosion shows that the Himalayas are at least six times lower than the theoretical maximum, indicating that balance is achieved by discontinuous pulses of rapid uplift alternating with longer periods of quiescence, as well as by variable rates of channel incision and slope processes of erosion. Calculation of long-term sediment deposition in the Indian Ocean equates to a denudation rate of 0.2 mm/yr. Short-term present day rates are 1-1.8 mm/yr. Present uplift of Nanga Parbat is about 5 mm/yr and is nearly balanced by denudation at Raikot Glacier of 4 mm/yr.
In Pleistocene at least three episodes of glacial advance left thick valley-fill sections that allow definition of Quaternary events. The early stage is indurated lower Jalipur tillites that lack clasts from Nanga Parbat and show that uplift had not yet exposed the massif. Overlying heterogeneous upper Jalipur valley-fill sedimentary rock is younger than 1-2 m/yr and is overturned or overridden by basement faulting in places. The middle stage is two or more tills intercalated within variable sediments, including thick lacustrine deposits at Gilgit and Skardu. The last stage consists of three or more separate advances that retain moraine topography. At Nanga Parbat and several other places, transverse glaciers at this time blocked the Indus to produce prominent lake deposits. Some of these ice dams failed and produced catastrophic floods and emplacement of the Punjab erratics at the mountain front. In Holocene time numerous glacial fluctuations and surges have occurred and are being monitored. Both glacial advances and major slope failures across rivers have occurred throughout the western Himalaya in historic time and have produced large impoundments, the dams of which failed subsequently and produced catastrophic floods.
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