TY - JOUR A1 - Hetzel, Ralf A1 - Niedermann, Samuel A1 - Tao, Mingxin A1 - Kubik, Peter W. A1 - Strecker, Manfred T1 - Climatic versus tectonic control on river incision at the margin of NE Tibet: Be-10 exposure dating of river terraces at the mountain front of the Qilian Shan JF - Journal of geophysical research : Earth surface N2 - [1] We document late Pleistocene - Holocene aggradation and incision processes at the mountain front of the Qilian Shan, an active intracontinental fold-and-thrust belt accommodating a significant portion of the India-Asia convergence. The Shiyou River cuts through a NNE vergent fault propagation fold with Miocene red beds in the core and Pliocene - Quaternary growth strata on the northern forelimb. South of the anticline, Miocene strata dip 20 degrees SSW, suggesting a similar orientation for the basal decollement. After aggradation of an similar to 150-m-thick, late Pleistocene valley fill, the Shiyou River formed three terraces. The highest terrace, located 170 m above the river, constitutes the top of the fill. The other terraces are fill cut terraces: their treads are located 130 - 105 m and 37 m above the river, respectively. The 10 Be exposure dating of the terraces suggests that river incision accelerated from 0.8 +/- 0.2 mm yr(-1) to similar to 10 mm yr(-1) at 10 - 15 kyr. We interpret fast Holocene river incision as largely unrelated to tectonic forcing. The late Pleistocene incision rate of 0.8 +/- 0.2 mm yr(-1) places an upper limit of 2.2 +/- 0.5 mm yr(-1) on the horizontal shortening rate, assuming that incision is solely caused by rock uplift above a decollement dipping 20 degrees. However, the actual shortening rate may lie between similar to 2.2 mm yr(-1) and zero because deformation of the terraces and the valley fill cannot be unequivocally demonstrated. Our estimate is consistent with the bulk shortening rate of similar to 5 - 10 mm yr(-1) across several faults in NE Tibet derived from neotectonic and GPS data, although in case of the Shiyou River, Holocene deformation is barely discernible owing to intense climate-induced river incision. Y1 - 2006 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1029/2005JF000352 SN - 2169-9003 SN - 2169-9011 VL - 111 PB - Union CY - Washington ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Küster, Yvonne A1 - Hetzel, Ralf A1 - Krbetschek, Matthias A1 - Tao, Mingxin T1 - Holocene loess sedimentation along the Qilian Shan (China) : significance for understanding the processes and timing of loess deposition N2 - We present optical ages for well preserved loess deposits along the Qilian Shan, a 500-km-long mountain belt forming the tectonically active northeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau. Loess on tectonically controlled fill terraces along the Shiyou and Baiyong rivers was dated by applying the single-aliquot regeneration (SAR) technique to coarse-grained (90-160 mu m) quartz samples. Additional measurements on polymineralic fine-grained (5-10 mu m) samples were carried out to allow a comparison between various optical dating techniques currently in use. The results demonstrate that (i) loess accumulation started between 13 and 11 ka B.P., continuing to the present, (ii) mean loess accumulation rates range between similar to 9 and similar to 16 cm ka(-1), and (iii) Holocene loess is not restricted to certain sites only, but is a prevalent phenomenon along the Qilian Shan mountain front. The absence of loess deposits of Late Pleistocene age is a result of a combination of cold and dry climate conditions, strong winds, and the absence of a vegetation cover during the last glacial period. Only with the change to a warmer and moister climate at the onset of the Holocene did a plant cover develop, which acted as a dust trap, thus initiating the formation of loess. Y1 - 2006 UR - http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02773791 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2005.03.003 SN - 0277-3791 ER -