Paraglacial landscape change in the NW Himalaya

To better understand transient sediment storage and the role of paraglaciation in mountain landscape change, my work extends to determining the timing of fan development in the northwestern Himalaya using cosmogenic nuclides (Orr et al., 2020). This project shows that fan surface abandonment coincides with periods of cooling and weakening monsoon strength, and local and regional glacier advances. This project also defines regional landform abandonment and incision events for the monsoon-influenced and semiarid western Himalaya ranges of the northwestern Himalaya for the past ~120 k.y, by compiling and reanalysing chronological datasets from existing geomorphic studies. GSA and the Graduate Student Governance Association (GSGA) at the University of Cincinnati have funded this work.

Orr, E. N., Owen, L. A., Saha, S., Caffee, M.W., (2020). Climate-driven late Quaternary fan surface abandonment in the NW Himalaya. ‘Ice-Age glaciers, water, and wind — Interdisciplinary Quaternary science round the world.’ GSA Special Paper in honor of Stephen C. Porter, edit. Waitt, R., Thackray, G., Gillespie, A. https://doi.org/10.1130/2020.2548(04).