We present a kinematic model for the Himalayan thrust belt that satisfies structural and metamorphic data and explains recently reported late Miocene–Pliocene geochronologic and thermochronologic ages from rocks in the Main Central thrust zone in central Nepal. At its current exposure level, the Main Central thrust juxtaposes a hanging-wall flat in Greater Himalayan rocks with a footwall flat i...

Single detrital monazite grains from the Dharamsala and Lower Siwalik Formations (early to mid-Miocene continental foreland basin sediments in NW India) have been dated by two techniques; isotope dilution thermal ionization multicollector mass spectrometry (ID-TIMS) and laser ablation plasma ionization multicollector mass spectrometry (LA-PIMMS). The results give U–Th–Pb isotopic ages of c. 400...

The Himalayan mountain range has been the locus of some of the largest continental earthquakes, including the 2015 magnitude 7.8 Gorkha earthquake. Competing hypotheses suggest that Himalayan topography is sustained and plate convergence is accommodated either predominantly on the main plate boundary fault, or more broadly across multiple smaller thrust faults. Here we use geodetic measurements...

Snow cover over the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region is of vital importance for northern Indian water resources. Important North Indian river basins, viz. Indus, Ganges, and Brahmaputra have their headway origin there and rely on the ablation period snow melt. Agriculture, animal husbandry, habitat, and regional socio-economic aspects traditionally depend on the snow cover and winter water sto...

This study investigates the impact of changing land use and cover patterns on surface water deficit in Rispana River Watershed Dehradun, India, from 1991 to 2020. Using Landsat TM, ETM+, OLI images GEE platform, authors assess changes vegetation, cover, use, as well climatic variables such precipitation, evapotranspiration, temperature. Find that rapid expansion urban/built-up areas, 20% 2005 6...

Despite longstanding research on the age and formation of the Tibetan Plateau, the controls on the erosional decay of its margins remain controversial. Pronounced aridity and highly localized rock uplift have traditionally been viewed as limits to the dissection of the plateau by bedrock rivers. Recently, however, glacier dynamics and landsliding have been argued to retard headward fluvial eros...

It is unclear where plate boundary thrusts generate giant rather than great earthquakes. Along the Himalayas, the source sizes and recurrence times of large seismic events are particularly uncertain, since no surface signatures were found for those that shook the range in the twentieth century. Here we challenge the consensus that these events remained blind and did not rupture the surface. We ...