TY  - JOUR
A1  - Menges, Johanna
A1  - Hovius, Niels
A1  - Andermann, Christoff
A1  - Dietze, Michael
A1  - Swoboda, Charlie
A1  - Cook, Kristen L.
A1  - Adhikari, Basanta R.
A1  - Vieth-Hillebrand, Andrea
A1  - Bonnet, Stephane
A1  - Reimann, Tony
A1  - Koutsodendris, Andreas
A1  - Sachse, Dirk
T1  - Late holocene landscape collapse of a trans-himalayan dryland
BT  - human impact and aridification
JF  - Geophysical research letters
N2  - Soil degradation is a severe and growing threat to ecosystem services globally. Soil loss is often nonlinear, involving a rapid deterioration from a stable eco-geomorphic state once a tipping point is reached. Soil loss thresholds have been studied at plot scale, but for landscapes, quantitative constraints on the necessary and sufficient conditions for tipping points are rare. Here, we document a landscape-wide eco-geomorphic tipping point at the edge of the Tibetan Plateau and quantify its drivers and erosional consequences. We show that in the upper Kali Gandaki valley, Nepal, soil formation prevailed under wetter conditions during much of the Holocene. Our data suggest that after a period of human pressure and declining vegetation cover, a 20% reduction of relative humidity and precipitation below 200 mm/year halted soil formation after 1.6 ka and promoted widespread gullying and rapid soil loss, with irreversible consequences for ecosystem services.
KW  - geomorphology
KW  - paleoclimate
KW  - human activity
KW  - Tibetan plateau
KW  - late Holocene
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL084192
SN  - 0094-8276
SN  - 1944-8007
VL  - 46
IS  - 23
SP  - 13814
EP  - 13824
PB  - American Geophysical Union
CY  - Washington
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kirby, Eric
A1  - Harkins, Nathan
T1  - Distributed deformation around the eastern tip of the Kunlun fault
JF  - INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES
N2  - Whether active strain within the Indo-Asian collision zone is primarily localized along major strike-slip fault systems or is distributed throughout the intervening crust between faults remains uncertain. Despite refined estimates of slip rates along many of the major fault zones, relatively little is known about how displacement along these structures is accommodated at fault terminations. Here, we show that a systematic decrease in left-lateral slip rates along the eastern similar to 200 km of the Kunlun fault, from > 10 mm/year to < 1 mm/year, is coincident with high topography in the Anyemaqen Shan and with a broad zone of distributed shear and clockwise vorticity within the Tibetan Plateau. Geomorphic analysis of river longitudinal profiles, coupled with inventories of cosmogenic radionuclides in fluvial sediment, reveal correlated variations in fluvial relief and erosion rate across the Anyemaqen Shan that reflect ongoing differential rock uplift across the range. Our results imply that the termination of the Kunlun fault system is accommodated by a combination of distributed crustal thickening and by clockwise rotation of the eastern fault segments.
KW  - Tibetan plateau
KW  - Active tectonics
KW  - Tectonic geomorphology
KW  - Strike-slip faults
Y1  - 2013
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-013-0872-x
SN  - 1437-3254
SN  - 1437-3262
VL  - 102
IS  - 7
SP  - 1759
EP  - 1772
PB  - SPRINGER
CY  - NEW YORK
ER  -