Ice dams, outburst floods, and glacial incision at the western margin of the Tibetan Plateau: A &gt;100 k.y. chronology from the Shyok Valley, Karakoram

Scherler, Dirk; Munack, Henry; Mey, Jürgen; Eugster, Patricia; Wittmann, Hella; Codilean, Alexandru T.; Kubik, Peter W.; Strecker, Manfred R.

doi:10.1130/b30942.1

Cited by 37 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 90 publications

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“…Deline and Orombelli, ; Korup et al ., ). For instance, glacier blockage of the Shyok River is reported to have lasted for more than 100 ka in the Karakoram (Scherler et al ., ). However, rainfall induced‐landslides can form dammed lakes but such lakes usually last for only a short interval as the dam is easily re‐opened by subsequent erosion when water level exceeds the dam (e.g.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…The evolution of dammed‐lakes including their formation, duration and breach provides key information for better assessing geological hazards for modern dammed lakes (e.g. Fan et al ., ; Scherler et al ., ). Moreover, environmental proxy studies like pollen records from lacustrine sediment are valuable materials for palaeo‐climate reconstructions (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

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OSL dating of past lake levels for a large dammed lake in southern Tibet and determination of possible controls on lake evolution

Chen

Aitchison

Zong

et al. 2016

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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Fluvio-lacustrine terraces along Phung Chu (river) on the central southern Tibetan Plateau indicate that a large palaeodammed-lake formerly existed in this area. Based on landscape survey, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating and sedimentary analyses, this research shows that the Phung Chu was blocked and a dammed-lake over 2500 km 2 in size formed before 30 ka ago. OSL dating analysis suggests the fluvio-lacustrine sediments were well bleached and yield accurate age estimates for two lake drainage events. The first drainage event took place after 30 ka, resulted in river incision and formed a high terrace at 50 m height from the present river level. The second drainage happened after 3.7 ka, resulted in further river incision and formed the second terrace at 25 m height from the present river level. According to the distribution of the fluvio-lacustrine sediments, active normal faults (particularly the Kharta Fault) in this region and the high gradient slopes after Phung Chu enters the Yö Ri gorge, seismically-induced landsliding is regarded as highly likely to have been the cause of river blockage and associated formation of a dammed-lake, although glacial damming is also a possible cause. The volume of drainages from this dammed-lake may have led to catastrophic flooding and analogous modern lakes represent significant geo-hazard risks to down-river human settlements. As dammed-lakes are special phases in fluvial evolution, often involving river blockage, breakthrough and drastic catchment change, these processes can reveal how tectonic or climatic events modify landforms. However, such tectonic-derived landform changes can also impact palaeo-climate of the region. Thus this study has added new evidence regarding the evolutionary history of a dammed lake including its formation, duration, extent and final drainage, which is crucial for understanding its general landscape process mechanisms and for better assessing geo-hazard risks.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

OSL dating of past lake levels for a large dammed lake in southern Tibet and determination of possible controls on lake evolution

Chen

Aitchison

Zong

et al. 2016

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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“…These sediments indicate that glacial damming essentially protects the upstream valley from erosion. Our preliminary lacustrine sediments analysis suggested that many outburst floods may occur during damming , similar to other glacial-dammed lakes (Waitt, 1985;Scherler et al, 2014). Large outburst floods may trigger landslides within Tsangpo gorge (Larsen and Montgomery, 2012) and induce downstream incision (Lang et al, 2013).…”

Section: Implications For Glacial Damming In the Yarlung Tsangpo Gorgementioning

confidence: 92%

Age and extent of a giant glacial-dammed lake at Yarlung Tsangpo gorge in the Tibetan Plateau

Liu

Lai

et al. 2015

Geomorphology

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“…The exact value of Q Ã m is difficult to define, as the recurrence time for the largest flood events may be longer than the longest observational records. For instance, in partly glaciated catchments, extremely large but rare floods can occur due to the outburst of glacial lakes [e.g., Montgomery et al, 2004;Scherler et al, 2014b]. However, for a wide range of parameter values the integral in equation (10) converges rapidly and is insensitive to the choice of Q Ã m [Lague et al, 2005].…”

Section: The Stochastic-threshold Stream Power Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing monsoonal controls on bedrock river incision in the Himalaya and Eastern Tibet with a stochastic‐threshold stream power model

et al. 2017

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10Be‐derived catchment average erosion rates from the Himalaya and Eastern Tibet show different relationships with normalized channel steepness index (ksn), suggesting differences in erosional efficiency of bedrock river incision. We used a threshold stream power model (SPM) combined with a stochastic distribution of discharges to explore the extent to which this observation can be explained by differences in the mean and variability of discharge between the two regions. Based on the analysis of 199 daily discharge records (record lengths 3–45 years; average 18.5 years), we parameterized monsoonal discharge with a weighted sum of two inverse gamma distributions. During both high‐ and low‐flow conditions, annual and interannual discharge variabilities are similarly low in each region. Channel widths for 36 rivers indicate, on average, 25% wider streams in Eastern Tibet than in the Himalaya. Because most catchments with 10Be data are not gauged, we constrained mean annual discharge in these catchments using gridded precipitation data sets that we calibrated to the available discharge records. Comparing 10Be‐derived with modeled erosion rates, the stochastic‐threshold SPM explains regional differences better than a simple SPM based on drainage area or mean annual runoff. Systematic differences at small ksn values can be reconciled with ksn‐dependent erosion thresholds, whereas substantial scatter for high ksn values persists, likely due to methodological limitations. Sensitivity analysis of the stochastic‐threshold SPM calibrated to the Himalaya indicates that changes in the duration or strength of summer monsoon precipitation have the largest effect on erosional efficiency, while changes in monsoonal discharge variability have almost no effect. The modeling approach presented in this study can in principle be used to assess the impact of precipitation changes on erosion.

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Ice dams, outburst floods, and glacial incision at the western margin of the Tibetan Plateau: A >100 k.y. chronology from the Shyok Valley, Karakoram

Cited by 37 publications

References 90 publications

OSL dating of past lake levels for a large dammed lake in southern Tibet and determination of possible controls on lake evolution

OSL dating of past lake levels for a large dammed lake in southern Tibet and determination of possible controls on lake evolution

Age and extent of a giant glacial-dammed lake at Yarlung Tsangpo gorge in the Tibetan Plateau

Testing monsoonal controls on bedrock river incision in the Himalaya and Eastern Tibet with a stochastic‐threshold stream power model

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