Provenance and erosional impact of Quaternary megafloods through the Yarlung-Tsangpo Gorge from zircon U-Pb geochronology of flood deposits, eastern Himalaya

Abstract

Holocene and Upper Pleistocene sediments in the eastern Himalayan syntaxis represent an extraordinary record of glacial outburst megafloods in one of the most tectonically active landscapes on Earth. Glacial damming and outburst floods in the syntaxis may have focused erosion in the steep Tsangpo Gorge and inhibited river incision into the margin of the Tibetan Plateau. However, few flood slackwater deposits have been studied, and it is unknown which of the hundreds of known glacial impoundments in Tibet may have sourced the floods. Here we report n=1438 new detrital zircon U-Pb data from individual ancient megaflood and historical outburst flood slackwater deposits to examine the provenance and erosive potential of these events. Detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology of megaflood deposits show that megaflood provenance is more consistent with impoundment of the Yarlung River drainage at or west of the Namche Barwa massif, than impoundment of eastern drainages along the Yigong and Parlung Rivers. Compared to active bedload in the Siang River, and historical floods within the same drainage area, megaflood samples overall contain a disproportionately large amount of zircons eroded from the Tsangpo Gorge. We interpret this preferential derivation to reflect preferential erosion during large discharge events—supporting the hypothesis that Quaternary megafloods are a primary contributor to rapid exhumation of the eastern Himalayan syntaxis.