Late-Quaternary geomorphic scenario due to changing depositional regimes in the Tangtse Valley, Trans-Himalaya, NW India
Introduction
The southwestern part of the Tibetan plateau is a cold, arid and high-altitude desert, much like its central counterpart. However, unlike the plateau area, mountainous river valleys are seen, occupied by the Indus River and its tributaries Shyok, Tangtse and Nubra, flowing along sutures/faults viz. the Indus Suture Zone (ISZ), the Shyok Suture Zone (SSZ) and the Karakorum Fault (KF). In general, the regional and global climate has been profoundly influenced by the uplift of Himalaya and Tibet (Wake and Mayewski, 1996) which in turn is responsible for shaping the geomorphology of this region. The Ladakh region in Trans-Himalaya is situated on the southwestern edge of the Tibetan Plateau and provides an ideal research site to study geomorphic and causative climatic, lithologic, and tectonic changes. It being a high-altitude and a cold desert, enormous amount of unconsolidated sediment (generated due to frost action/physical weathering) lies loose on the high-angled slopes and the valley floor.
The Westerlies are the dominant source of precipitation, in the form of snow, to the region in winter months (October–April). A secondary source of precipitation is the summer monsoon (July–September) from the south (Mayewski et al., 1980, Goudie et al., 1984). On one hand, in cases of abrupt precipitation the loose sediment over the slopes slides to the river bed and blocks it, which forms water ponds behind this debris, with the debris serving as a dam. On the other hand, due to the proximity of the region to the KF, tectonic changes, violent seismic shocks and active deformation develop as a result of continued post-collision convergence of the Indian plate and Asian landmasses (Molnar et al., 1987, Valdiya, 1988). The KF shows slip rates of ~ 30 mm yr− 1 on the basis of Holocene offsets of geomorphic features (Avouac and Tapponnier, 1993, Matte et al., 1996) and the current rates estimated from the GPS measurements are 3.4 ± 5 mm yr− 1 (Jade et al., 2004). The aggradation phases and incision rates in these valleys vary widely. For the Indus valley catchment (along the ISZ), which today is less tectonically active than KF, incision rates are of 2.5 mm yr− 1 (fill) and 0.02–1 mm yr− 1 (Dortch et al., 2013, Blöthe et al., 2014). The Trans-Himalayan and Karakoram relief indicate active orogeny during the Quaternary (Gansser, 1964, Gansser, 1983, Gee, 1989), which continues to date (Phartiyal and Sharma, 2009, Hintersberger et al., 2010, Hintersberger et al., 2011, Hewitt, 2009, Hewitt, 2011, Korup et al., 2010). Active tectonics result in the generation of enormous amounts of debris generated by reactivation of thrusts and faults leading to slope failure and drainage blocking, and the subsequent formation of lakes and landslide dams. There are several records of such climatically and tectonically formed lakes from the Indus catchment (Burgisser et al., 1982, Cronin, 1982, Shroder, 1993, Owen, 1988, Cronin, 1989, Fort et al., 1989, Kotlia et al., 1997a, Kotlia et al., 1997b, Kotlia et al., 1998, Phartiyal et al., 2005, Phartiyal and Sharma, 2009, Sangode et al., 2011, Phartiyal et al., 2013, Blöthe et al., 2014, Nag and Phartiyal, 2014). These lakes may drain or breach, leaving behind a sedimentary record of exposed lacustrine and associated fluvial and colluvial sediments distributed along the river valleys that can be analyzed to reveal palaeoclimate, tectonics and earth surface processes.
In the Trans-Himalaya range, east of the Tangtse River Valley, the present day lake, Pangong Tso (Tso = lake), has high, distinct palaeo strand lines and provides past information about the wider extent of the lake area. This lake lies between India and China and occupies a long submerged valley of ~ 145 km. Today the lake is a chain of five basins separated by shallow sills and evolves as a series of lakes with connecting rivers (Hutchinson, 1937). The river have been dammed to the west by a ridge either formed by tectonic activity associated with the right lateral strike-slip Karakoram fault (KF) (Huang et al., 1989) or by the Last Glacial Maximum moraine deposit (Norin, 1946), a flood event draining the Pangong Tso waters through the Tangtse Valley to Shyok River reported at 11 ka (Dortch et al., 2011). The distribution of lacustrine facies and the associated fluvial deposits of this important Tangtse Valley lying west of the Pangong Tso have been studied in order to reconstruct geomorphological evolution and depositional regimes of the area over the last 48 ka.
Section snippets
Study area, climate, geology and river system
The Tangtse Valley is the eastern most tip of the Indian territory of the Karakoram Range (Fig. 1). The Tangtse River is a tributary of the Shyok River, and connects the Pangong Tso and the Shyok River Valley. The region lies in the rain shadow of NW Himalaya and has an arid to hyper arid climate and dry steppe vegetation (Klimeš, 2003, Bookhagen et al., 2005). It is a cold desert with altitudes more than 3500 m above sea level (asl), experiences severe winters, and is covered with snow for
Materials and method
A traverse of 72 km was carried along the Tangtse River in the Lukhung–Muglib Valley and partly (~ 10 km up stream) along Loi Yogma Valley to study provenance, depositional environment and changes in sediment facies over time. Landforms were identified and mapped in the field with the help of Survey of India topographic maps and satellite data (Google Earth, ASTER-DEM, LISS-III). The Quaternary landforms were physically examined through ground check. The lacustrine facies is defined by buff and
Geomorphic features
Major geomorphic attributes observed within the basin include fluvial and alluvial terraces, huge fanglomerates, scarp, triangular facets, straight valleys, narrow valleys, gorge and incised river valley (Fig. 3). The cross-valley profiles show the U and V-shape, asymmetric nature and varying width of the valley in different stretches (Fig. 2C). The longitudinal profile of river is an important tool to understand the perturbations of neotectonics of an area (Seeber and Gornitz, 1983, Schumm,
Discussion
In the Tangtse River Valley, we documented the fluvial incision and sediment infills, which have led to the changes in the geomorphic landscape of the region in the last 48 ka. The longitudinal profile of the river was characterized by knick zones (Fig. 2A and B) where we recorded an enhanced fluvial incision. The aggradation was documented as sediment fills i.e., river terraces (T1 and T2) and lacustrine deposits. The control of the incision and infill can be due to or a combined effect of
Conclusions
The sediment distribution along the Tangtse Valley (Ladakh) supplemented with the OSL and radiocarbon chronology leads to the following conclusions-
- 1.
A structural/tectonic, lithologic as well as climatic control is observed on the physiography of the Tangtse River.
- 2.
Fluvial depositional environment existed in the valley at 48 ka and ~ 30–21 ka, a period marked by arid conditions with cold and dry climate. An incision of ~ 130 m between 22 ± 4 ka and ~ 9.6 ka; sediment fill from 9.6–5.1 ka and again incision
Acknowledgments
This work was performed under the auspices of Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany, Lucknow, India and Institute of Seismological Research (ISR) Gandhinagar, India, funded by Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi (Project No. SR/FTP/ES-123/2009). Thanks to Dr. Anupam Sharma for help in the first year's field work and Drs. D. V. Reddy and P. Morthekai for NaI gamma measurements at NGRI, Hyderabad.Three anonymous reviewers helped improve the manuscript. D.L. Dilcher and Pallavi
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Sedimentation, tectonics and climate in Ladakh, NW Trans-Himalaya-with a special reference to Late Quaternary Period
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2021, CatenaCitation Excerpt :During the late Tertiary, ongoing compression shortened the basin by several kilometers in response to the N to NE directed backthrusting (Searle et al., 1990). In the Quaternary times, the Indus river valley along the ISZ in the Ladakh region shows the development of multiple level terraces, large alluvial fans, landslide-dammed lakes and extensive deformed lake sediments (Phartiyal et al., 2005, 2013, 2015; Clift and Giosan, 2014; Blöthe et al., 2014; Nag and Phartiyal, 2015; Nag et al., 2016; Kumar and Srivastava, 2017). Several studies in the Indus valley attempted to chronologically constrain the preserved sediments in the valley fill to reconstruct the landscape development, climate-tectonic forcings, influence of precipitation induced surface runoff and erosion flux at millennial time scales (Sharma et al., 1998; Sant et al., 2011a, 2011b; Clift and Giosan, 2014; Munack et al., 2014; Blöthe et al., 2014; Mujtaba et al., 2017).