Wang, Ping and Scherler, Dirk and Liu-Zeng, Jing and Mey, Jürgen and Avouac, Jean-Philippe and Zhang, Yunda and Shi, Dingguo (2014) Tectonic control of Yarlung Tsangpo Gorge revealed by a buried canyon in Southern Tibet. Science, 346 (6212). pp. 978-981. ISSN 0036-8075. doi:10.1126/science.1259041. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20141002-110016774
|
PDF (Materials and Methods, Supplementary Text)
- Supplemental Material
See Usage Policy. 1MB |
Use this Persistent URL to link to this item: https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20141002-110016774
Abstract
The Himalayan mountains are dissected by some of the deepest and most impressive gorges on Earth. Constraining the interplay between river incision and rock uplift is important for understanding tectonic deformation in this region. We report here the discovery of a deeply incised canyon of the Yarlung Tsangpo River, at the eastern end of the Himalaya, which is now buried under more than 500 meters of sediments. By reconstructing the former valley bottom and dating sediments at the base of the valley fill, we show that steepening of the Tsangpo Gorge started at about 2 million to 2.5 million years ago as a consequence of an increase in rock uplift rates. The high erosion rates within the gorge are therefore a direct consequence of rapid rock uplift.
| Item Type: | Article | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Related URLs: |
| ||||||||||||
| ORCID: |
| ||||||||||||
| Additional Information: | © 2014 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received for publication 22 July 2014. Accepted for publication 1 October 2014. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41372211 and 41172179) and the State Key Laboratory for Earthquake Dynamics (Project LED2013A07). D.S. was supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Data presented here are archived with the supplementary materials. We thank four anonymous reviewers whose comments improved this paper and B. Hallet for insightful discussions. | ||||||||||||
| Group: | Seismological Laboratory | ||||||||||||
| Funders: |
| ||||||||||||
| Issue or Number: | 6212 | ||||||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1126/science.1259041 | ||||||||||||
| Record Number: | CaltechAUTHORS:20141002-110016774 | ||||||||||||
| Persistent URL: | https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20141002-110016774 | ||||||||||||
| Usage Policy: | No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided. | ||||||||||||
| ID Code: | 50170 | ||||||||||||
| Collection: | CaltechAUTHORS | ||||||||||||
| Deposited By: | Joy Painter | ||||||||||||
| Deposited On: | 20 Nov 2014 19:35 | ||||||||||||
| Last Modified: | 10 Nov 2021 18:52 |
Repository Staff Only: item control page
