Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Web of Science (7) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Finnegan, N. J. Articles by Yuping, L. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

Coupling of rock uplift and river incision in the Namche Barwa–Gyala Peri massif, Tibet

Noah J. Finnegan^,,1, Bernard Hallet¹, David R. Montgomery¹, Peter K. Zeitler², John O. Stone³, Alison M. Anders⁴ and Liu Yuping⁵

¹ Department of Earth and Space Sciences and Quaternary Research Center, University of Washington, P.O. Box 351310, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA
² Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lehigh University, 31 Williams Drive, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015, USA
³ Department of Earth and Space Sciences and Quaternary Research Center, University of Washington, P.O. Box 351310, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA
⁴ Department of Geology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 245 Natural History Building, 1301 West Green Street, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA
⁵ Chengdu Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources, 2 Beisanduan, Yihuanlu, Chengdu 610081, Sichuan Province, China

Geodynamic modeling demonstrates the strong potential for erosion to influence the pattern and style of deformation in active mountain belts, but field studies yield conflicting views on the importance of erosion in influencing orogenesis. Here we compare patterns in river power, inferred excess fluvial-transport capacity, topographic relief, precipitation, and mineral-cooling ages to assess the coupling between surface erosion and rock uplift within the vicinity of the Namche Barwa–Gyala Peri massif, an active antiformal structure within the eastern Himalayan syntaxis. Our rich and dense data set reveals a tight spatial correspondence of fluvial incision potential, high relief, and young cooling ages. The spatial coincidence is most easily explained by a sustained balance between rock uplift and denudation driven by river incision over at least the last 1 m.y. The Yarlung Tsangpo–Brahmaputra River is the largest and most powerful river in the Himalaya, and two lines of evidence point to its active role in the dynamic interaction of local erosion, rock uplift, thermal weakening of the lithosphere, and deformation: (1) Whereas along the rest of the Himalayan front, high relief and high rock uplift rates are essentially continuous, the high relief and rapid exhumation in the syntaxis is restricted to a "bull's-eye" pattern exactly where the largest river in the Himalaya, the Yarlung Tsangpo–Brahmaputra, has the most energy per unit area available to erode its channel and transport sediment. (2) The location of rapid incision on the Yarlung Tsangpo–Brahmaputra has been pinned for at least 1 m.y., and without compensatory uplift of the Namche Barwa–Gyala Peri massif during this time the river would have eroded headward rapidly, incising deeply into Tibet.

Key Words: river incision • rock uplift • climate • tectonics • landscape evolution • eastern Himalayan syntaxis • Namche Barwa

This article has been cited by other articles:

				M. Taylor and A. Yin Active structures of the Himalayan-Tibetan orogen and their relationships to earthquake distribution, contemporary strain field, and Cenozoic volcanism Geosphere, June 1, 2009; 5(3): 199 - 214. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				R.J. Stewart, B. Hallet, P.K. Zeitler, M.A. Malloy, C.M. Allen, and D. Trippett Brahmaputra sediment flux dominated by highly localized rapid erosion from the easternmost Himalaya Geology, September 1, 2008; 36(9): 711 - 714. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]