Thermochronology of the modern Indus River bedload: New insight into the controls on the marine stratigraphic record

摘要

The Indus River is the only major drainage in the western Himalaya and delivers a long geological record of continental erosion to the Arabian Sea, which may be deciphered and used to reconstruct erogenic growth if the modern bedload can be related to the mountains. In this study we collected thermochronologic data from river sediment collected near the modern delta. U-Pb ages of zircons spanning 3 Gyr show that only ～ 5% of the eroding crust has been generated since India-Asia collision. The Greater Himalaya are the major source of zircons, with additional contributions from the Karakoram and Lesser Himalaya.