Repeated catastrophic valley infill following medieval earthquakes in the Nepal Himalaya
- Geomorphic footprints of past large Himalayan earthquakes are elusive, although they are urgently needed for gauging and predicting recovery times of seismically perturbed mountain landscapes. We present evidence of catastrophic valley infill following at least three medieval earthquakes in the Nepal Himalaya. Radiocarbon dates from peat beds, plant macrofossils, and humic silts in fine-grained tributary sediments near Pokhara, Nepal’s second-largest city, match the timing of nearby M > 8 earthquakes in ~1100, 1255, and 1344 C.E. The upstream dip of tributary valley fills and x-ray fluorescence spectrometry of their provenance rule out local sources. Instead, geomorphic and sedimentary evidence is consistent with catastrophic fluvial aggradation and debris flows that had plugged several tributaries with tens of meters of calcareous sediment from a Higher Himalayan source >60 kilometers away.
Verfasserangaben: | Wolfgang SchwanghartORCiDGND, Anne BernhardtORCiDGND, Amelie StolleORCiD, Philipp Hoelzmann, Basanta R. Adhikari, Christoff AndermannORCiDGND, Stefanie TofeldeORCiDGND, Silke MerchelORCiDGND, Georg Rugel, Monique Fort, Oliver KorupORCiDGND |
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DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac9865 |
ISSN: | 0036-8075 |
ISSN: | 1095-9203 |
Pubmed ID: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26676354 |
Titel des übergeordneten Werks (Englisch): | Science |
Verlag: | American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science |
Verlagsort: | Washington |
Publikationstyp: | Wissenschaftlicher Artikel |
Sprache: | Englisch |
Jahr der Erstveröffentlichung: | 2016 |
Erscheinungsjahr: | 2016 |
Datum der Freischaltung: | 22.03.2020 |
Band: | 351 |
Seitenanzahl: | 4 |
Erste Seite: | 147 |
Letzte Seite: | 150 |
Fördernde Institution: | German Research Foundation [KO 3937/9]; Potsdam Research Cluster for Georisk Analysis (PROGRESS); Helmholtz Postdoc Program of the German Helmholtz Association [PD-039] |
Organisationseinheiten: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Geowissenschaften |
Peer Review: | Referiert |
Name der Einrichtung zum Zeitpunkt der Publikation: | Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Erd- und Umweltwissenschaften |