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The Thar Desert is a major sediment depocenter located in southwestern Asia and bordering the Indus drainage system to its east. It is unclear where the sediment that built the desert is coming from, and when the desert experienced phases of construction. In particular, we seek to establish the role of the South Asian monsoon in the initial formation and subsequent expansion of the desert. Here we integrate bulk-petrography and heavy-mineral data with U-Pb ages of detrital zircon grains to understand how the Thar Desert relates to the major potential sediment sources in the Himalayan orogen and to the large rivers that adjoin it to the west and north. Bulk petrography and heavy-mineral data from eolian sand in Cholistan (NE Pakistan) show closer similarity with that of Himalayan tributaries than eolian sand in Sindh (S Pakistan), which contains heavy-mineral suites close to those of mainstream Indus sand largely supplied by erosion of the Karakorum and Kohistan ranges. Kohistan is a particularly rich source of heavy minerals and is thus over-represented in provenance budgets based on that proxy alone. U[sbnd]Pb ages of detrital-zircon fail to show a sharp difference between dune sands in Sindh and Cholistan but confirms a somewhat greater supply from the Himalaya in Cholistan and from the Karakorum, Kohistan, and Nanga Parbat in Sindh. Zircon ages are similar in Sindh desert sand and in the Indus Delta, and are most similar to deltaic sand dated as 7 ka or older in the deglacial period. In parallel, the age signature of Cholistan sand resembles more that of older river channels found along the northwestern edge of the desert (e.g., paleo-Ghaggar-Hakra) than that of modern Himalayan tributaries (e.g., Sutlej). Both Cholistan and Sindh sands suggest that sediment supply to the desert was greater during the early Holocene when the summer monsoon was stronger. The southwesterly summer monsoon was the most effective agent of eolian transport and recycling of Indus delta

This article reviews what is known about sediment composition and transport within and offshore Taiwan Island, a place on Earth where ultrarapid erosion is induced by strong tectonic activity, powerful earthquakes, high relief, and intense precipitation during the passage of typhoons. Literature information is here integrated with new petrographic, heavy-mineral, clay-mineral, elemental-geochemistry, and Sr and Nd isotope-geochemistry data on river sands and fluvial, shelf, and deep-sea muds to obtain a general overview of sediment generation and offshore dispersal pathways. The Taiwan thrust belt is bracketed by two opposite-verging subduction zones, and orogenic detritus is transferred across rugged relief to surrounding forearc basins and trenches in the deep sea. Despite humid tropical climate, physical erosion is so fast that both sand petrography and clay mineralogy faithfully reflect the lithology of source rocks. In the Coastal Range, Miocene Luzon Arc andesites shed feldspatho-lithic volcaniclastic sediment rich in pyroxenes and smectite, whereas quartzo-lithic sand is recycled from the overlying Pliocene-Pleistocene sandstones. Basement rocks of the Tananao Complex supply quartzo-lithic metamorphiclastic sand with epidote and amphibole and mud rich in chlorite and illite. Lower Cenozoic mudrocks of the Slate Belt produce lithic to quartzo-lithic metasedimentaclastic sand with durable ZTR minerals and mostly illite, whereas upper Cenozoic strata of the Western Foothills shed recycled quartzo-lithic to litho-quartzose sedimentaclastic sand with ZTR minerals, garnet, and mixed clay-mineral assemblages. Scarce kaolinite, inconsistent behavior of mobile elements in sediment derived from opposite sides of Taiwan Island, and lack of correlation between geochemical and climatic parameters consistently indicate a weathering-limited regime. High weathering indices in sediment of western Taiwan rivers thus cannot be ascribed to present conditions but were largely inh

Glacier surfaces are highly heterogeneous mixtures of ice, snow, light-absorbing impurities and debris material. The spatial and temporal variability of these components affects ice surface characteristics and strongly influences glacier energy and mass balance. Remote sensing offers a unique opportunity to characterize glacier optical and thermal properties, enabling a better understanding of different processes occurring at the glacial surface. In this study, we evaluate the potential of optical and thermal data collected from field and drone platforms to map the abundances of predominant glacier surfaces (i.e., snow, clean ice, melting ice, dark ice, cryoconite, dusty snow and debris cover) on the Zebrù glacier in the Italian Alps. The drone surveys were conducted on the ablation zone of the glacier on 29 and 30 July 2020, corresponding to the middle of the ablation season. We identified very high heterogeneity of surface types dominated by melting ice (30% of the investigated area), dark ice (24%), clean ice (19%) and debris cover (17%). The surface temperature of debris cover was inversely related to debris-cover thickness. This relation is influenced by the petrology of debris cover, suggesting the importance of lithology when considering the role of debris over glaciers. Multispectral and thermal drone surveys can thus provide accurate high-resolution maps of different snow and ice types and their temperature, which are critical elements to better understand the glacier’s energy budget and melt rates.

The Yarlung Tsangpo, draining the Himalayan-Tibetan orogen along the Indus-Yarlung suture zone, receives detritus from the deformed remnants of both Indian margin to the south and Asian margin to the north. High resolution petrographic, heavy-mineral and geochemical datasets, combined with published geochronological data, allow us to monitor compositional changes, estimate erosion rates and investigate lithologic, climatic and anthropic controls on sediment fluxes along this large sediment-routing system entirely developed within high mountain areas. Sediment generated from the Lhasa Block along the southern margin of Asia is characterized by abundant feldspar and volcanic rock fragments, amphibole-dominated transparent heavy mineral suite and high concentrations of K, Rb, Be, Th and Pb. Himalayan-derived sand, instead, is characterized by sedimentary to low-rank metasedimentary rock fragments, poor transparent heavy mineral suite dominated by durable recycled (zircon, tourmaline) or metamorphic minerals (chloritoid, garnet) and high Ca concentration. Sand from the ophiolitic suture is distinguished by serpentinite grains and mafic volcanic or metavolcanic detritus, transparent heavy mineral suite including olivine, Cr-spinel, enstatite and clinopyroxene, and high Mg, Cr, Ni and low rare earth elements. Himalayan detritus is prominent in Yarlung Tsangpo upper reaches, whereas detritus from the Lhasa Block becomes progressively predominant in the middle and lower reaches. Provenance budgets based on integrated petrographic, heavy-mineral and geochemical datasets indicate that ca. 83% of the detritus is supplied by the Lhasa Block and the rest mostly from the Himalaya (ca. 12%) and subordinately from the ophiolitic suture (5%). A low average erosion rate of ca. 0.06 mm/a was estimated for the Yarlung Tsangpo catchment upstream of the Namche Barwa syntaxis, which resulted from dry climate, relatively mild average relief and sediment storage in wide valley tracts o

This work explores the significance of sedimentary proxies recorded within the Paleogene fine-grained detritus of the Adriatic foredeep (Northern Italy). Such sequences represent the only sedimentary record describing the source-to-sink system delivering detritus from the growing Alpine belt to the basin during the Eocene – Oligocene boundary. The combination of x-ray powder diffractometric, petrographic, SEM-EDS and biostratigraphic analyses on more than twenty samples from the Ternate-Travedona Formation, the Chiasso Formation, and the Villa Olmo Conglomerate allowed to identify the source areas of detritus and potential fluvial paleo-drainages, possibly ascribable to two different sectors of the Southalpine domain. Comparison between these results and the petrographic composition of the Cretaceous wedge in the same area opens to the possibility that Cenozoic drainages were inherited from more limited paleo-drainages developed during the end of the Mesozoic. Results of provenance analysis also gives new insights on how detrital compositions may vary in function of grain-size in tropical-subtropical environments.

This work is aimed at illustrating one of the most engaging geoparks in Europe, the Gole della Breggia Geopark. By following its geotrail, the visitors can observe a great deal of features that encompass a wide variety of sedimentary, stratigraphic, tectonic and paleogeographic processes. Its contents are popularized by a comprehensive geotrail that encompasses 23 geostops, enriched with explanatory panels, which enable viewers to gain an overall picture of the complex processes that led to the present-day configuration of the outcrops encountered in the geopark. We have selected five significative outcrops, which we have regarded as fully-fledged geosites, and which encompass the whole 170-million-year interval, from Early Jurassic to Late Miocene times, during which the rocks of the geopark were deposited and deformed. We have performed an assessment of the five geosites, using the most common criteria that can be applied for geosite evaluation. The results of the assessment show that the most valuable geosites are the Lombardian Maiolica, and the Limestone with Pelagic Bivalves. All five geosites, thanks to a QR code added to each figure along the text, can be viewed as virtual geosites (VGs), integrated by 360° videos.

As children transition to adulthood, do they remain a major determinant of parental labor supply? To answer this question, we examine how college costs affect the labor supply of mothers and fathers by exploiting the roll-out of nine generous state merit aid programs in the United States from 1993 to 2004, which made college more affordable. Mothers of college-age children decreased their annual hours of work after the introduction of these state-wide programs, while fathers did not adjust their labor supply. Mothers of college-going children were entirely responsible for the decline in hours of work, where mothers of children who did not go to college experienced no change in hours of work. The decline in labor supply was mainly due to adjustments among high-income, married, more educated, and white mothers, whose labor supply was more elastic to college costs.

The intermontane Tarom Basin of NW Iran (Arabia-Eurasia collision zone) is located at the transition between the Iranian Plateau (IP) to the SW and the Alborz Mountains to the NE. This basin was filled by upper Cenozoic synorogenic red beds that retain first-order information on the erosional history of adjacent topography, the vertical growth of the plateau margin and its orogen perpendicular expansion. Here, we perform a multidisciplinary study including magnetostratigraphy, sedimentology, geochronology and sandstone petrography on these red beds. Our data show that Eocene arc volcanism in the region terminated at 38-36 Ma, while intrabasinal synorogenic sedimentation (endorheic conditions) occurred from at least 16.2 to <7.6 Ma, implying that the red beds are stratigraphically equivalent to the Upper Red Formation. After 7.6 Ma, the basin experienced intrabasinal deformation, uplift and erosion with the establishment of external drainage. Fluvial connectivity with the Caspian Sea, however, was interrupted by at least four episodes of basin aggradation. During endorheic conditions, the basin fill did not reach the elevation of the plateau interior and hence the Tarom Basin was never integrated into the plateau. Furthermore, our provenance data indicate that the northern margin of the basin (Alborz Mountains) experienced a greater magnitude of Miocene deformation and erosional exhumation than the southern one (IP margin). This agrees with recent Moho depth estimates, suggesting that crustal shortening and thickening cannot be responsible for the vertical growth of the northern margin of the IP, and hence surface uplift must have been driven by deep-seated processes.

Central Argentina from the Pampean flat-slab segment to northern Patagonia (27°–41°S) represents a classic example of a broken retroarc basin with strong tectonic and climatic control on fluvial sediment transport. Combined with previous research focused on coastal sediments, this actualistic provenance study uses framework petrography and heavy-mineral data to trace multistep dispersal of volcaniclastic detritus first eastwards across central Argentina for up to ca. 1,500 km and next northwards for another 760 km along the Atlantic coast. Although detritus generated in the Andes is largely derived from mesosilicic volcanic rocks of the cordillera, its compositional signatures reflect different tectono-stratigraphic levels of the orogen uplifted along strike in response to varying subduction geometry as well as different character and crystallization condition of arc magmas through time and space. River sand, thus, changes from feldspatho-litho-quartzose or litho-feldspatho-quartzose in the north, where sedimentary detritus is more common, to mostly quartzo-feldspatho-lithic in the centre and to feldspatho-lithic in the south, where volcanic detritus is dominant. The transparent-heavy-mineral suite changes markedly from amphibole ≫ clinopyroxene > orthopyroxene in the north, to amphibole ≈ clinopyroxene ≈ orthopyroxene in the centre and to orthopyroxene ≥ clinopyroxene ≫ amphibole in the south. In the presently dry climate, fluvial discharge is drastically reduced to the point that even the Desaguadero trunk river has become endorheic and orogenic detritus is dumped in the retroarc basin, reworked by winds and temporarily accumulated in dune fields. During the Quaternary, instead, much larger amounts of water were released by melting of the Cordilleran ice sheet or during pluvial events. The sediment-laden waters of the Desaguadero and Colorado rivers then rushed from the tract of the Andes wit

Large sediment masses are transferred over many hundreds of kilometres along the coast of passive continental margins worldwide. The relevance of such a phenomenon for source-to-sink studies, environmental issues, and coastal management remains largely unperceived. This study traces the paths of volcaniclastic sand along ca 2170 km of the Argentine coast and documents a 760 km long cell of littoral transport extending from the formerly larger Río Colorado delta to the edge of the Río de la Plata mouth. During deglaciation stages and humid periods of the Pleistocene, a much greater sediment volume than today was transferred by the Desaguadero and Colorado rivers from the highest-relief tract of the Andean Cordillera to the Atlantic Ocean. Amphibole-rich sand originally supplied by the Río Desaguadero is being recycled today from Pampean lowlands to feed the beaches along Río de la Plata southern shores, whereas pure quartzose sand of Río Paraná is found only adjacent to its prograding delta. Augite-rich sand supplied by the Río Colorado is dominant along the coast of the Buenos Aires Province, where it mixes locally with coarser-grained quartz-rich detritus recycled in the urbanized Mar del Plata area. Hypersthene-rich sand of the Río Negro is dispersed both north and south of the mouth, where heavy-mineral-rich lag deposits are formed in areas of accelerated erosion and retreating sea cliffs. Changes of mineralogical signatures during long-distance littoral transport are largely ascribed to local supply from coastal erosion or hydrodynamic effects rather than to selective breakdown of labile grains. Whereas the relative abundance of amphibole and pyroxene is largely independent of transport distance, olivine is depleted both in the northern part of the Colorado littoral cell and south of the Río Negro mouth, which is chiefly ascribed to dilution by recycling of Neogene sediments that have undergone early intrastratal dissolution rather than to mec

The Zambezi River rises at the center of southern Africa, flows across the low-relief Kalahari Plateau, meets Karoo basalt, plunges into Victoria Falls, follows along Karoo rifts, and pierces through Precambrian basement to eventually deliver its load onto the Mozambican passive margin. Reflecting its polyphase evolution, the river is subdivided into segments with different geological and geomorphological character, a subdivision finally fixed by man’s construction of large reservoirs and faithfully testified by sharp changes in sediment composition. Pure quartzose sand recycled from Kalahari desert dunes in the uppermost tract is next progressively enriched in basaltic rock fragments and clinopyroxene. Sediment load is renewed first downstream of Lake Kariba and next downstream of Lake Cahora Bassa, documenting a stepwise decrease in quartz and durable heavy minerals. Composition becomes quartzo-feldspathic in the lower tract, where most sediment is supplied by high-grade basements rejuvenated by the southward propagation of the East African rift. Feldspar abundance in Lower Zambezi sand has no equivalent among big rivers on Earth and far exceeds that in sediments of the northern delta, shelf, and slope, revealing that provenance signals from the upper reaches have ceased to be transmitted across the routing system after closure of the big dams. This high-resolution petrologic study of Zambezi sand allows us to critically reconsider several dogmas, such as the supposed increase of mineralogical “maturity” during long-distance fluvial transport, and forges a key to unlock the rich information stored in sedimentary archives, with the ultimate goal to accurately reconstruct the evolution of this mighty river flowing across changing African landscapes since the late Mesozoic.

The Nicobar Fan and Bengal fans can be considered as the eastern and western parts, respectively, of the largest submarine-fan system in the world. This study presents the integrated results of petrographic and provenance studies from the Nicobar Fan and evaluates these in the context of controls on sedimentation. Both fans were predominantly supplied by Himalaya-derived material from the main tectono-stratigraphic sequences as well as the Gangdese arc. A lack of volcanic material in the Nicobar Fan rules out sources from the Sumatra magmatic arc. Overall, the petrographic data shows a progressive decrease in sedimentary detritus and corresponding increase of higher-grade metamorphic detritus up-section. Changes in sediment provenance and exhumation rates in the Himalaya are seen to track changes in sediment accumulation rates. High sediment accumulation rates in the Bengal Fan occurred at ∼13.5–8.3 Ma, and in the Nicobar Fan from ∼9.5–5 Ma. Both fans show peak accumulation rates at 9.5–8.3 Ma (but with the Nicobar Fan being about twice as high), and both record a sharp drop from ∼5.5–5.2 Ma, that coincided with a change in river drainage associated with the Brahmaputra River diverting west of the uplifting Shillong Plateau. At ∼5 Ma, the Nicobar Fan was supplied by an eastern drainage route that finally closed at ∼2 Ma, when sediment accumulation rates in the Nicobar Fan significantly decreased. Sediment provenance record these changes in routing whereby Bengal Fan deposits include granitoid sources from the Namche Barwa massif in the eastern syntaxis that are not seen in the Nicobar Fan, likely due to a more localised eastern drainage that included material from the Indo-Burman wedge. Prior to ∼3 Ma, source exhumation rates were rapid and constant and the short lag-time rules out significant intermediate storage and mixing. In terms of climate versus tectonic controls, tectonically driven changes in the river network have had most influence on fan sedimentation.

The study analyses through an interdisciplinary approach the wattle-and-daub building technique used on the Po Plain of northern Italy, focusing on the archaeological evidence from the Etruscan site of Forcello, near Bagnolo San Vito (Mantua) (540–375 bce). Wattle and daub is widespread across different times and periods, and is particularly common in regions such as the Po Plain, where stone sources for construction are not immediately available. Thanks to a combined archaeometric, geological and anthracological study, the paper provides new insights on a fifth-century bce building structure from Forcello. The findings reveal information on the life history of this feature, including its construction, maintenance and final destruction. The research also sheds a new light on the wattle-and-daub technique and on the interaction between people and the Po Plain Etruscan palaeoenvironment.

The West Burma Terrane (WBT) is a small terrane bounded to the east by the Asian Sibumasu Block and to the west by the Indo-Burman Ranges (IBR), the latter being an exhumed accretionary prism that formed during subduction of Indian oceanic lithosphere beneath Asia. Understanding the geological history of the WBT is important for reconstruction of the closure history of the Tethys Ocean and India-Asia collision. Currently there are major discrepancies in the proposed timings of collision between the WBT with both India and Asia; whether the WBT collided with India or Asia first is debated, and proposed timings of collisions stretch from the Mesozoic to the Cenozoic. We undertook a multi-technique provenance study involving petrography, detrital zircon U-Pb and Hf analyses, rutile U-Pb analyses and Sr-Nd bulk rock analyses on sediments of the Central Myanmar Basins of the WBT. We determined that the first arrival of Asian material into the basin occurred after the earliest late Eocene and by the early Oligocene, thus placing a minimum constraint on the timing of WBT-Asia collision. Our low temperature thermochronological study of the IBR records two periods of exhumation, in the early-middle Eocene, and at the Oligo-Miocene boundary. The Eocene event may be associated with the collision of the WBT with India. The later event at the Oligo-Miocene boundary may be associated with changes in wedge dynamics resulting from increased sediment supply to the system; however a number of other possible causes provide equally plausible explanations for both events.

We here review in terms of tectono-magmatic setting and Quaternary landscape dynamics what is known about the provenance of Argentine dune fields and their fluvial feeder systems draining the Andean Cordillera. The detrital signatures of these eolian sediments were previously investigated based on either framework petrography and heavy minerals or detrital-zircon geochronology, and their peculiar volcaniclastic nature was long recognized. Compositional variability, however, was only broadly evaluated, and quantitative provenance analysis based on a systematic multimethod approach across the entire region was not carried out so far. For this reason, here we integrate original and previously obtained petrographic, heavy-mineral, and detrital-zircon geochronology data to present the first comprehensive provenance study of dune fields stretching for 1000 km across central Argentina from the Andean piedmont to the Atlantic Ocean. In dune fields along the Andean retroarc basin, sediment composition defines a steady northward decrease in volcanic detritus. This reflects active magmatism in the Southern Volcanic Zone and Payenia province (38°-34°S), in contrast with the ~600-km-long Pliocene-Quaternary magmatic gap in the Pampean flat-slab segment (33°-27°S), where sediment is derived from deeper-seated tectono-stratigraphic levels of the continental arc and uplifted blocks of retroarc-basin basement. In distal Pampean lowlands extending across the bulge and backbulge depozones, instead, sand dunes display notably homogeneous compositional signatures, indicating that detritus was mostly generated north of 34°S and transported by a paleo-Desaguadero trunk river that formed during southward-progressing diachronous uplift of the Sierras Pampeanas since the late Miocene. In contrast with huge African and Arabian deserts that contain multiply recycled quartzose to pure quartzose sand, even very fragile volcanic clasts, plagioclase feldspar, and unstable ferromagnesian minerals a

Understanding the recent events marking the late Quaternary history of the Po Plain (N-Italy) is of overriding importance to decipher the record of depositional versus erosional phases, and their interplay with climatic, tectonic, and human forcing. We reconstructed the structural setting and chronostratigraphy of a Holocene succession crosscut by a thrust fault located south of Montodine (Cremona, Italy) within the Po Plain. The fault shows a maximum displacement up to one meter. Radiocarbon dating fixes a minimum age of 11.9 cal ka BP for the postglacial river entrenchment and constrains the fault movement age between 5.9 and 3.4 cal ka BP. Undeformed Late Medieval coarse gravels cover the faulted succession. Due to the outcrop position, lying above the buried frontal thrusts of the Southern Alps and North Apennines, we propose that faulting results from secondary surface effects induced by seismic shaking. We discuss two main mechanisms, both related to lateral spreading, that can result in the formation of reverse faults close to the surface. The Soncino area, recording one of the strongest historical earthquakes of the central Po Plain (1802), is considered as a possible source for seismic shaking. The results of this study are a contribution for the assessment of the potential seismic hazard in one of the most populated regions of Europe.

The Younger Dryas chronozone is the last and coldest abrupt climatic change that took place at the end of the late Pleistocene producing a significant environmental disruption in America Europe and Asia. These changes include diversity and abundance of vegetation, and are often associated with a large amount of charcoal recorded in several paleoenvironmental records and coincide with high mortality of large vertebrates. This abrupt YDB (Younger Dryas Boundary) change has been always associated with major drainage of Lake Agassiz producing a major change in southern overturning driving freshwater draining into the western Arctic Ocean. The mechanism of this overturning is not well understood. Several authors suggest that there was a comet affecting the atmosphere that occurred at around the YD Boundary as observed in a widespread anomaly in 50 YDB sites in all latitudes. This anomaly is found in lacustrine, fluvial, glacial and aeolian systems that date to around 12,800 y bP. The YDB layer has been proposed as a widespread correlation datum in America (North, and South), Europe and Asia. In order to investigate in Mexico sites potentially affected by the Younger Dryas event, we collected sediment samples from four ancient lakes in central Mexico (Chapala, Cuitzeo, Acambay, Chalco lake) and two rivers in the south Mexico (Oaxaca and Chiapas). All contain distinctive characteristics as determined by sedimentological, geochemical, micropaleontogical and paleopedological analyses. The retrieved and dated lake and fluvial sediments encompass the Pleistocene-Holocene transition and provide good materials for studying the YD transition. The detailed stratigraphical analyses in the buried YDB layer intervals show anomalous values for bulk chemistry, pollen, stable isotopes, diatoms, nanodiamond polytypes, TOC, charcoal, soot, and platinum. All show higher concentrations than average background values associated with numerous quenched Fe spherules. These are morphologically a

The Bangladesh lowlands are traversed by the largest sediment flux on the planet. Detritus generated mostly in Himalayan highlands and conveyed through the Ganga–Brahmaputra rivers and Meghna estuary reaches the Bay of Bengal, where it forms a composite deltaic system. This study integrates the vast existing database on Ganga–Brahmaputra sediments of all grain sizes from clay to sand with new petrographic, mineralogical, and geochemical data on estuarine and shallow-marine sands. A large spectrum of compositional signatures was used to: (i) assess the relative supply of the Ganga and Brahmaputra rivers to estuarine and shelfal sediments; (ii) define the compositional variability of estuarine sediments and the impact exerted by hydraulic sorting and climate-related chemical weathering on provenance signals; (iii) define the compositional variability of shelf sediments and the potential hydrodynamic segregation of fast-settling heavy minerals in coastal environments and of slow-settling platy micas on low-energy outer-shelf floors; (iv) consider the potential additional mud supply from the western subaerial part of the delta formerly built by the Ganga River; and (v) draw a preliminary mineralogical comparison between fluvio-deltaic sediments and turbidites of the Bengal–Nicobar deep-sea fan, thus tracing sediment dispersal across the huge sedimentary system extending from Tibet to the equatorial Indian Ocean. All investigated mineralogical and geochemical parameters, as well as Sr and Nd isotope ratios and clay–mineral assemblages, showed a clear prevalence in sediment supply from the Brahmaputra (60–70%) over the Ganga (30–40%). Heavy-mineral suites and Sr and Nd isotope fingerprints of Bengal shelf sediments are nearly identical to those of the Brahmaputra River and Meghna estuary, also because the Brahmaputra carries almost twice as many Ca-plagioclase grains and heavy minerals including epidote than the Ganga, and these minerals control the large majority of the

The Indo-Burman Ranges (IBR) are a mountain range comprised of Mesozoic-Cenozoic rocks which run the length of Western Myanmar, extending into India and Bangladesh; to the west lies the Indian Ocean, and to the east lies the Central Myanmar Basin (CMB) along which the Irrawaddy River flows. The IBR are considered to be an accretionary prism, developed at the juncture of the Indian and Sunda plates, and a number of hypotheses have been proposed for their evolution. However, in order for these hypotheses to be evaluated, the timing of IBR evolution needs to be determined. We undertook a two-pronged approach to determining the timing of uplift of the IBR. (1) We present the first low-temperature thermochronological age elevation profiles of the IBR using ZFT, AFT and ZHe techniques. Our data show: a major period of exhumation occurred around the time of the Oligo-Miocene boundary; we tentatively suggest, subject to further verification, an additional period of exhumation at or before the late Eocene. (2) We carried out a detailed multi-technique provenance study of the sedimentary rocks of the IBR and Arakan Coastal region to their west, and compared data to coeval rocks of the CMB. We determined that during Eocene times, rocks of the CMB and IBR were derived from similar local provenance, that of the Myanmar arc to the east. Therefore at this time there was an open connection from arc to ocean. By contrast, by Miocene times, provenance diverged. Rocks of the CMB were deposited by a through-flowing Irrawaddy River, with detritus derived from its upland source region of the Mogok Metamorphic Belt and Cretaceous-Paleogene granites to the north. Such a provenance is not recorded in coeval rocks of the IBR, indicating that the IBR had uplifted by this time, providing a barrier to transport of material to the west. To the previously published list of viable proposals to explain the exhumation of the range, we add a new suggestion: the period of exhumation around the time of

A recent study (Aielli et al. 2017) about sand boil reactivations in the major Po river banks (Italy) has demonstrated how a structured database of historic information can significantly contribute to better understanding of seepage phenomena and provide a practical tool for safe management of hydraulic works. The primary aim of the present work is to enhance the information collected in the database (DB), which cover the whole course the Po river, to the beginning of the delta. In particular, an improved estimation of the critical height (i.e. height of the water level in the river which causes a sand boil reactivation) for sand boil phenomena is discussed herein. The maximum height without reactivation and the minimum height with reactivation have been evaluated for each recorded sand boil. The DB information and processing of the available data allow defining how the values of the critical heights are distributed along the course of the river. The DB information, connected to the alert thresholds and to the early warning system, can provide an indication of the possible reactivations of the piping phenomena in advance, enabling efficient coordination of the emergency actions against backward erosion piping progression.

A never solved problem in sedimentary petrology is the origin of sandstone consisting exclusively of quartz and most durable heavy minerals. The Congo River offers an excellent test case to investigate under which tectonic, geomorphological, climatic, and geochemical conditions pure quartzose sand is generated today. In both upper and lowermost parts of the catchment, tributaries contain significant amounts of feldspars, rock fragments, or moderately stable heavy minerals pointing at the central basin as the main location of the “quartz factory”. In Congo sand, quartz is enriched relatively to all other minerals including zircon, as indicated by Si/Zr ratios much higher than in the upper continental crust. Selective elimination of old zircons that accumulated radiation damage through time is suggested by low percentages of grains yielding Archean U–Pb ages despite the basin being surrounded by Archean cratonic blocks. Intense weathering is documented by the lack of carbonate grains in sand and by dominant kaolinite and geochemical signatures in mud. In sand, composed almost entirely of SiO2, the weathering effect is masked by massive addition of quartz grains recycled during multiple events of basin inversion since the Proterozoic. Changes in mineralogical, geochemical, and geochronological signatures across Bas-Congo concur to suggest that approximately 10% of the sand supplied to the Atlantic Ocean is generated by rapid fluvial incision into the recently uplifted Atlantic Rise. The Congo River connects with a huge canyon ~30 km upstream of the mouth, and pure quartzose sand is thus funnelled directly toward the deep-sea to feed a huge turbidite fan. Offshore sediments on both sides of the canyon are not derived from the Congo River. They reflect mixed provenance, including illite-rich dust wind-blown from the arid Sahel and augite, hypersthene, and smectite ejected from volcanic centres probably situated along the Cameroon Line in the north. Because mixing of detr

Understanding the tectonics that gave rise to the formation of Tibet is critical to our understanding of crustal deformation processes. The unusual geomorphology of the drainage basins of East Asia's major rivers has been proposed to be the result of either (1) distortion and attenuation of antecedent drainages as India indents into Asia, which can therefore be used as passive strain markers of horizontal shear, or (2) due to fragmentation by river captures and flow reversals of an originally continental-scale drainage, in which the major East Asian rivers once flowed into the palaeo-Red River. If the latter hypothesis is correct, then it has been proposed that dating the drainage fragmentation constrains the timing of uplift of Tibet.A number of sedimentary provenance studies have been undertaken in order to determine whether the palaeo-Red River was once a river of continental proportions into which the upper reaches of the Yangtze, Salween, Mekong, Irrawaddy, and Yarlung drained.We have assessed the evidence that the Yarlung originally flowed into the palaeo-Red river, and then sequentially into the Irrawaddy and Brahmaputra, connecting to the latter first via the Lohit and then the Siang. For this river system, we have integrated our new data from the Paleogene-Recent Irrawaddy drainage basin (detrital zircon U-Pb with Hf and fission track, rutile U-Pb, mica Ar-Ar, bulk rock Sr-Nd, and petrography) with previously published data, to produce a palaeodrainage model that is consistent with all datasets. In our model, the Yarlung never flowed into the Irrawaddy drainage: during the Paleogene, the Yarlung suture zone was an internally drained basin, and from Neogene times onwards the Yarlung drained into the Brahmaputra in the Bengal Basin. The Central Myanmar Basin, through which the Irrawaddy River flows today, received predominantly locally-derived detritus until the Middle Eocene, the Irrawaddy initiated as a through-going river draining the Mogok Metamorphic Bel

Terrigenous input is often considered detrimental for carbonate producing organisms, however, the common occurrence of mixed siliciclastic–bioclastic deposits indicates that the relationship between carbonate factories and terrigenous fluxes is a complex issue. To investigate this subject, we analyzed the skeletal assemblages of the Paleogene Alpine foreland basin in a wide area encompassing NW Italy and SE France. Four different sections, Mortola, Loreto, Braux and Lauzanier, deposited between the Bartonian and the Priabonian, were studied in detail and, based on microfacies analysis, six main biofacies were recognized: i) nummulitid biofacies and ii) acervulinid and coralline algal biofacies related to shallow water; iii) nummulitid and orthophragminid biofacies and iv) coralline-algal branches and large benthic foraminifera biofacies related to intermediate depth; v) orthophragminid biofacies and vi) orthophragminid and coralline algal biofacies related to deeper settings. Thin sections and X-ray diffraction analyses show that these biofacies can be related to two major carbonate factories. The former was dominated by free-living benthic foraminifera and was characterized by a relevant terrigenous fraction, indicating free-living benthic foraminifera as the most terrigenous-tolerant group of carbonate producers of the Nummulitic Limestone system. The latter was dominated by encrusting acervulinids and coralline algae and thrived far-off major terrigenous sources. Conversely, recent and Neogene coralline algae are known to be able to tolerate high sedimentation rates. The distribution of coralline-algal-rich skeletal assemblages in the Nummulitic Limestone thus hints that Eocene coralline algae might have been fundamentally different (probably less adaptable) than their more modern counterparts.

The Nile is generally regarded as the longest river in the world. Knowledge of the timing of the Nile's initiation as a major river is important to a number of research questions. For example, the timing of the river's establishment as a catchment of continental proportions can be used to document surface uplift of its Ethiopian upland drainage, with implications for constraining rift tectonics. Furthermore, the time of major freshwater input to the Mediterranean is considered to be an important factor in the development of sapropels. Yet the river's initiation as a major drainage is currently constrained no more precisely than Eocene to Pleistocene.Within the modern Nile catchment, voluminous Cenozoic Continental Flood Basalts (CFBs) are unique to the Ethiopian Highlands; thus first detection of their presence in the Nile delta record indicates establishment of the river's drainage at continental proportions at that time. We present the first detailed multiproxy provenance study of Oligocene-Recent Nile delta cone sediments. We demonstrate the presence of Ethiopian CFB detritus in the Nile delta from the start of our studied record (c. 31 Ma) by (1) documenting the presence of zircons with U-Pb ages unique, within the Nile catchment, to the Ethiopian CFBs and (2) using Sr-Nd data to construct a mixing model which indicates a contribution from the CFBs. We thereby show that the Nile river was established as a river of continental proportions by Oligocene times. We use petrography and heavy mineral data to show that previous petrographic provenance studies which proposed a Pleistocene age for first arrival of Ethiopian CFBs in the Nile delta did not take into account the strong diagenetic influence on the samples.We use a range of techniques to show that sediments were derived from Phanerozoic sedimentary rocks that blanket North Africa, Arabian-Nubian Shield basement terranes, and Ethiopian CFB's. We see no significant input from Archaean cratons supplied directly v

High-resolution sand petrography and heavy mineral analyses help to frame U-Pb age and Hf isotope data from zircon grains, integrated in turn with geochemical data from detrital apatite, rutile, garnet, and monazite, and with Raman spectroscopy data from detrital amphibole, pyroxene, and epidote-group minerals. This multitechnique approach, including stream-profile analysis, was used to characterize components of the sediment flux and define erosion patterns across the Lhasa block, a complex continental-arc terrane caught in the Himalayan collision. Litho-feldspatho-quartzose detrital modes and hornblende-dominated heavy mineral assemblages suggest that the majority (four fifths) of the sand bed load in the Lhasa River catchment is derived from erosion of granitoid batholiths. Gravel composition, however, is markedly different and dominated by volcanic pebbles in the trunk river, as in all of its four major tributaries, testifying to an order-of-magnitude difference in apparent erosion rates between granitoid batholiths and arc lavas. This marked contrast, partly explained by wide exposures of granitoid rocks in the rugged Nyainqêntanglha Range characterized by active incision, is notably amplified by the high sand-generation potential of granitoid rocks, which, in contrast to dense joint blocks of andesitic lavas, tend to disintegrate to sandy grus upon weathering. Sedimentary strata, making up a good half of exposed rocks, are also underrepresented in sand bed load, suggesting selective mechanical breakdown of nondurable shale/slate grains. This exposes a serious bias affecting estimates based on sand only, and it highlights the necessity for taking into account the entire size spectrum from mud to gravel in order to improve the accuracy of sediment budgets. Provenance analysis should involve multiple methods applied to multiple minerals, rather than be based solely on a single rare mineral, even if it is exceptionally laden with potential provenance information

The Last Glaciation environmental history of the Po Plain (Northern Italy) is still poorly known. Here we present a multiproxy record from a compressed peat dated 33-30 ka cal BP, underlying the Last Glacial Maximum fluvio-glacial belt in the Adda River catchment. Slow river dynamics and subsurface water saturation granted stable surfaces supporting mixed pine-birch forests, including open wetlands - marshes and swamps - and open drylands, with juniper bushes, connected to sandy river bars. Fire phases favoured birch but decreased arboreal pollen, although open lands did not expand. We discuss relationships with millennial climate variability between GI-6 and GS-5.1.

The intermontane Tarom Basin of NW Iran (Arabia-Eurasia collision zone) is located at the transition between the Iranian Plateau (IP) to the SW and the Alborz Mountains to the NE. This basin was filled by Late Cenozoic synorogenic red beds that retain first-order information on the erosional history of adjacent topography, the vertical growth of the plateau margin and its lateral (orogen perpendicular) expansion. Here, we perform a multidisciplinary study including magnetostratigraphy, sedimentology, geochronology and sandstone petrography on these red beds. Our data show that widespread Eocene arc volcanism in NW Iran terminated at ~ 38-36 Ma, while intrabasinal synorogenic sedimentation occurred between ~ 16.5 and < 7.6 Ma, implying that the red beds are stratigraphically equivalent to the Upper Red Formation. After 7.6 Ma, the basin experienced intrabasinal deformation, uplift and erosion in association with the establishment of external drainage. Fluvial connectivity with the Caspian Sea, however, was interrupted by at least four episodes of basin aggradation. During endorheic conditions the basin fill did not reach the elevation of the plateau interior and hence the Tarom Basin was never integrated into the plateau realm. Furthermore, our provenance data indicate that the northern margin of the basin experienced a greater magnitude of deformation and exhumation than the southern one (IP margin). This agrees with recent Moho depth estimates, suggesting that crustal shortening and thickening cannot be responsible for the vertical growth of the northern margin of the IP, and hence surface uplift must have been driven by deep-seated processes.

Provenance analysis of IODP Expedition 355 cores in the Laxmi Basin sheds new light on the erosional evolution of the Himalayan belt and its western syntaxis during the Neogene and on large-scale mass-wasting and magmatic events that affected the western continental margin of India in the mid-Miocene and early Paleocene. In the cored Laxmi Basin succession, heavy minerals are far less affected by selective diagenetic dissolution than in forelandbasin sandstones exposed along the Himalayan front. Occurrence of euhedral aegirine and apatite in lower Paleocene mudrocks can be tied to alkaline volcanism affecting the adjacent western Indian margin during the late stage of Deccan activity. In the mid-Miocene Nataraja Slide (the second-largest mass-transport deposit reported from passive margins worldwide), dominant carbonate detritus and depleted heavy-mineral suites (including apatite, garnet, and locally augite or rare aegirine) reveal gravitational failure and sliding of the entire succession of carbonate and siliciclastic Paleogene to lower Neogene strata originally accumulated offshore of the Saurashtra margin of western India. Contrary to previous inferences, reworking of Indus-derived detritus by the slide was negligible. The overlying upper Miocene to lower Pleistocene turbidite package has the same feldspatho-litho-quartzose to litho-feldspathoquartzose signature of modern Indus fluvio-deltaic sand, indicating that amphibolite-facies metamorphic rocks have been widely exposed in the Himalaya–Karakorum orogen since at least the mid-Miocene. Pleistocene nannofossil oozes with planktonic foraminifera at the top of the fan contain a very subordinate litho-feldspatho-quartzose terrigenous fraction including augitic clinopyroxene, suggesting mixing of dominant biogenic debris with minor detritus contributed both by the Indus River and by a river draining western peninsular India, possibly the paleo-Narmada or the paleo-Tapti.