Impact of the Mid-Pleistocene Transition on erosion in the glaciated Kyrgyz Tien Shan

Project Summary

Constraining the effect of global climatic changes on earth surface’s processes is crucial to our understanding of landscape evolution. One debated question is the impact of the Late Cenozoic cooling and subsequent Quaternary glaciations on the erosion of mountain ranges.

The Kyrgyz Range, part of the Tien Shan and situated in northwest Kyrgyzstan, spans east-west over 400 km and present strong glacial features in the northern flank. Previous thermochronology studies in the Kyrgyz Range have identified an increase of exhumation rates over the last 3 Ma which could be the result of enhanced glacial erosion (Bullen et al., 2003; Sobel et al., 2006). Furthermore, a global analysis of published thermochronology data found the Kyrgyz Range as one of the few locations with the potential to record the effect of Pleistocene glaciations (Schildgen et al., 2018).

In this project, we use age-elevation profiles and detrital thermochronology to constrain Pleistocene exhumation rates and sediment sources.

Two field campains took place in summer 2021 and summer 2022 to collect the samples.

Scientific Results

First results from this project will be presented at EGU 2023 in Vienna!