Quaternary glaciation of Mount Everest

Abstract

The Quaternary glacial history of the Rongbuk valley on the northern slopes of Mount Everest is examined using field mapping, geomorphic and sedimentological methods, and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and 10

Paleoglaciation of the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding mountains based on exposure ages and ELA depression estimates

“…Past glacial advances have occurred in high-relief alpine environments with extensive present-day glaciers (e.g. Seong et al, 2007;Owen et al, 2009) as well as in currently non-glaciated low-relief mountain regions (e.g. Heyman et al, 2009;Fu et al, 2013a).…”

The ‘Little Ice Age’ in the Himalaya: A review of glacier advance driven by Northern Hemisphere temperature change

“…TCN dating of glacial landforms frequently uses 10 Be extracted from quartz within individual boulders (e.g. Owen et al, 2009), although 3 He from garnets was used for moraines in the Ganesh Himal (Gayer et al, 2006). TCN dating is applied to measure the exposure age of a moraine boulder by calculating the content of the isotope in question, calibration of the production rate of this isotope based on cosmogenic isotopic fluxes and topographic shielding (Heyman et al, 2016), and an estimate of the amount of erosion that the surface has undergone.…”

“…One age has been produced using OSL dating for a sand lens in the Lhotse Glacier terminal moraine of 900 ± 200 CE (Richards et al, 2000) and is supported by three similar 14 C ages for this moraine and five from that of the neighbouring Lhotse Shar Glacier (Röthlisberger and Geyh, 1986). The moraine of Kyuwo Glacier was dated using 14 C to 1014-658 CE (Fushimi, 1978), and although this moraine was assigned by Fushimi to the Pheriche advance (equivalent to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) around 21 ka), this age is likely to instead represent the late-Holocene advance because of the morphological similarity with the moraines dated by Owen et al (2009). Two sets of lateral and terminal moraines are located immediately outboard of the present-day margin of Khumbu Glacier ( Figure 5).…”

“…Two glaciofluvial samples from the proglacial area of Gangotri Glacier in the Central Himalaya dated using TCN to 1370 and 1450 CE represent deposits formed after the onset of glacier mass loss (Barnard et al, 2004). Supraglacial debris on Rongbuk Glacier dated using TCN to investigate the minimum likely age of the decline of debris transport offglacier demonstrate that sustained glacier recession occurred between 1300 and 2000 CE (Owen et al, 2009). A similar age from Milarepa's Glacier in India from 10 TCN samples suggested that supraglacial debris was in situ since 1670 ± 70 CE (Heimsath and McGlynn, 2008).…”

“…However, the correlation of this advance of Kyuwo Glacier with the LGM moraines formed by larger glaciers in the Khumbu Himal is based on the interpretation of stratigraphic position, where at least three sets of moraines representing distinct advances between the LGM and LIA occur close to the terminus of the small glacier (Finkel et al, 2003). TCN ages for the Pheriche advance of neighbouring Khumbu and Lhotse Glaciers assigned the LGM to around 21 ka (Owen et al, 2009). Fushimi's 14 C sample was collected from the late-Holocene rather than LGM moraine as these features were not distinguished as separate landforms.…”