Asynchronous glaciation at Nanga Parbat, northwestern Himalaya Mountains, Pakistan
- William M. Phillips*1,
- Valerie F. Sloan*2,
- John F. Shroder, Jr.*3,
- Pankaj Sharma*4,
- Michèle L. Clarke*5 and
- Helen M. Rendell*6
- 1Department of Geography, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9XP, Scotland, UK
- 2Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA
- 3Department of Geography and Geology, University of Nebraska, Omaha, Nebraska 68182, USA
- 4PRIME Lab, Department of Physics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA
- 5School of Geography, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK
- 6Department of Geography, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leicestershire LE11 3TU, UK
Abstract
We present a new glacial chronology demonstrating asynchroneity between advances of Himalayan glaciers and Northern Hemisphere ice-sheet volumes. Glaciers at Nanga Parbat expanded during the early to middle Holocene ca. 9.0–5.5 ka. No major advances at Nanga Parbat during the last global glacial stage of marine oxygen isotope stage 2 (MIS-2) between 24 and 11 ka were identified. Preliminary evidence also indicates advances between ca. 60 and 30 ka. These periods of high ice volume coincide with warm, wet regional climates dominated by a strong southwest Asian summer monsoon. The general lack of deposits dating from MIS-2 suggests that Nanga Parbat was too arid to support expanded ice during this period of low monsoon intensity. Advances during warm, wet periods are possible for the high-altitude summer accumulation glaciers typical of the Himalayas, and explain asynchronous behavior. However, the Holocene advances at Nanga Parbat appear to have been forced by an abrupt drop in temperature ca. 8.4–8.0 ka and an increase in winter precipitation ca. 7–5.5 ka. These results highlight the overall sensitivity of Himalayan glaciation to orbital forcing of monsoon intensity, and on millennial or shorter time scales, to changes in North Atlantic circulation.
Footnotes
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↵GSA Data Repository item 200045, Tables A–C, is available on request from Documents Secretary, GSA, P.O. Box 9140, Boulder, CO 80301-9140, editinggeosociety.org, or at www.geosociety.org/pubs/drpint.
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↵*Phillips—wmpgeo.ed.ac.uk. Present address: Sloan—Center for the Study of Earth from Space, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309, USA
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Data Repository item 200045 contains additional material related to this article.
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- Accepted February 23, 2000.
- Received October 28, 1999.
- Revision received February 14, 2000.
- Geological Society of America
