Progress in Physical Geography

Progress in Physical Geography
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Emergence and evolution of Himalaya: reconstructing history in the light of recent

studies
K. S. Valdiya
Progress in Physical Geography 2002 26: 360
DOI: 10.1191/0309133302pp342ra
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Progress in Physical Geography 26,3 (2002) pp. 360399
Emergence and evolution of

Himalaya: reconstructing history in
the light of recent studies
K.S. Valdiya
Geodynamics Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research,
Bangalore 560 064, India
Abstract: India collided with mainland Asia at 65 Ma. The pressure rose to 911 kbar in the
collision zone. As the Indian lithosphere bent down and its upper crust buckled up as an upwarp
in the period 3545 Ma, the southern margin of Asia became the water-divide of the Himalayan
rivers. A variety of Eurasian fauna migrated to the Indian landmass. The southern margin of the
Himalayan province synchronously sagged to give rise to the foreland basin that was linked
with the Indian sea. In this Paleocene foreland basin 4849 Ma ago, the whales from one of the
species of the immigrant terrestrial mammals evolved. The sea retreated from the Himalayan
province by the early Miocene, even as the crust broke up along faults 2022 million years ago.
The basement rocks, which had attained high-grade metamorphism at 600800C and 610 kbar,
were thrust up to give rise to what later became the Himadri or Great Himalaya. Differential
melting of the high-grade metamorphic rocks of the Himadri extensively produced 21 1 Maold granites.
Rivers carried detritus generated by the denudation of the fast emerging Himalaya and
deposited it in the foreland basin which turned fluvial around 23 Ma. Another fluvial foreland
basin, the Siwalik, was formed at ~18 Ma in front of the rapidly rising orogen and was filled by
river-borne sediments at the rate of 2030 cm year1 in the early stage and at 5055 cm year1
later when the Himadri was uplifted and briskly exhumed in the Late Miocene (97.5 Ma). The
Himadri then became high enough to cause disruption of wind circulation, culminating in the
onset of monsoon. The climate change that followed caused migration of a variety of
quadrupeds from Africa and Eurasia, bringing about considerable faunal turnovers in the
Siwalik life.
Spasmodic uplift of the outer ranges of the Lesser Himalaya and tectonic convulsion in the
Siwalik domain at 1.6 Ma resulted in widespread landslides with debris flows and emplacement
of the Upper Siwalik Boulder Conglomerate. Strong tectonic movements at 0.8 Ma caused the
partitioning of the foreland basin into the rising Siwalik Hills and the subsiding IndoGangetic
Plains, and also the initiation of glaciation in the uplifted domain of the Great Himalaya. After
the end of the Pleistocene ice age around 0.2 Ma, there was oscillation of dry-cold and wet-warm
climates. This climatic vicissitude is recorded in the sediments of the lakes that had formed
Arnold 2002
10.1191/0309133302pp342ra
K.S. Valdiya
361
because of reactivation of faults crossing rivers and streams. Activeness of faults, continuing
uplift and current seismicity imply ongoing strain-buildup in the Himalayan domain.
Key words: continental collision; crustal upwarp; drainage reversal; fault reactivation; faunal
immigration; foreland basin; onset of monsoon and glaciation.
Introduction
The last three decades witnessed truly international endeavours for understanding the
structural architecture, the compositional characteristics and the tectonics of the young
mountain that evolved as a consequence of the Indian continent colliding with
mainland Asia at the beginning of the Cenozoic era. Bringing the entire mountain world
in the ambit of comprehensive mapping is still some way off. However, isolated indepth studies have helped clarify structural complexities and stratigraphic tangles.
Deep seismic reflection profiling across the central sector of the mountain arc has
provided an insight into its structural design and tectonics. Accessory minerals such as
monazite, zircon and apatite have proved to be very reliable geochronometers,
indicating not only the age of the formation of the host rocks, but also the timing of
brittle faulting and attendant deformation along the terrane boundaries. Analysis of
isotopic compositions of sedimentary rocks and their fossils has opened a new vista of
understanding of the palaeoclimate changes. The vertebrates are very revealing of the
dispersal of fauna and the reconstruction of palaeogeography. The application of
accurate techniques of dating and fine-tuning of geomagnetic reversal records have
helped to better constrain the evolutionary history of the Himalaya. Studies of aspects
of stream ponding have unearthed a store of information concerning incidence of
tectonic movements and changes in climate in Quaternary time. The GPS-based
geodetic surveys now provide more precise data on the rates of movements of crustal
blocks and of IndiaAsia convergence. The use of in situ cosmogenic isotopes of
beryllium and aluminium for exposure-age dating demonstrates the versatility of a tool
for estimating the rate of uplift and resultant unroofing and denudation of the
mountain. This paper is a sequel to the authors earlier review (Valdiya, 1973) of the
works published prior to 1972. It is an attempt to highlight findings in the last three
decades and the inferences drawn that have bearing on the interpretation of pivotal
events leading to the emergence of the worlds highest mountain. Admittedly, the
author has freely projected his own understanding, especially in the areas of neotectonics, which happen to be his sphere of studies.
II
Regional tectonic design
The Himalaya is divisible into four lithotectonically and physiographically distinct

terranes (Figure 1). The dividing planes are the thrusts of regional dimension and
varying tectonic activity. The Indo-Gangetic Plain in the extreme south is separated by
the Himalayan Frontal Fault (HFF) from the ruggedly youthful 9001500 m-high
Siwalik Hills made up of Late Tertiary to Early Quaternary molasse. The Lesser
Himalaya, delimited against the Siwalik by the Main Boundary Thrust (MBT), is made
362
Emergence and evolution of Himalaya
K.S. Valdiya
363
up of Middle and Late Proterozoic to Early Cambrian sedimentary rocks that are
overthrust by vast and thick sheets of Early Proterozoic metamorphic rocks with
granites dated 1900 100 Ma and 550 25 Ma (see Valdiya, 1980, 1998). Rising to an
elevation of 5002500 m above the mean sea level, the Lesser Himalayan terrane
exhibits a comparatively mild and mature topography. North of the Lesser Himalaya
the Main Central Thrust (MCT) demarcates the lower boundary of the extremely
rugged and youthful 65007000 m-high Great Himalaya (or Himadri) a complex of
high-grade metamorphic rocks intensively injected by and migmatized with MidTertiary anatectic granites. Further north, the Trans-Himadri Fault (T-HF) marks the
tectonic boundary between the Great Himalayan crystalline complex and its thick Late
Proterozoic to Late Cretaceous sedimentary cover of the Tethys terrane. Representing
the distal continental margin of the Indian Shield and having an extremely rugged
physiography, the Tethyan terrane ends against the Indus-Tsangpo Suture (I-TS) that
marks the junction of the Indian and Asian continental masses.
III
Timing and conditions of the IndiaAsia collision
Breaking away from Madagascar nearly 8687 million years ago, India converged at the
rate of 1819 cm year1 towards mainland Asia and collided with it, giving rise to the
Himalaya. The junction of the two collided landmasses (Figures 1 and 2) is known as
the Indus-Tsangpo Suture (Gansser, 1977), now occupied by the rivers Sindhu (Indus)
and Brahmaputra (Tsangpo). In Pakistan it has been designated as the Main Mantle
Thrust (Tahirkheli, 1979, 1982). The Indus-Tsangpo Suture Zone (I-TSZ) embodies
ocean-floor basic and ultrabasic rocks associated with deep-sea and oceanic-trench
sediments of Cretaceous age and also the volcanic sea mounts and island-arc of the
Kohistan-Ladakh-Shigatse belt (Srikantia, 1978; Tong and Zhang, 1981; Thakur, 1983).
1
Time of docking
The biostratigraphy of Waziristan and Khurram in northwest Pakistan suggests that the
northwestern edge of India touched Asia (Figure 2) at ~65 Ma when the accretionary
prism of sediments along with fragments of volcanic island arc were first thrust up onto
the continental-marginal sediments of India (Beck et al., 1995). The testimony of the
foraminifera Ranikothalia bermugezi occurring in the collision-type delta-fan deposits in
the Cuojiang area in southern Tibet corroborates the 65-Ma collision of the two
continents (Wang Chengshan et al., 1999). Unconformable overlapping of the I-TSZ by
the Early Eocene shallow marine strata in northwest Pakistan shows that the welding
of Asia and India was complete by 49 Ma (Beck et al., 1995).
The palaeomagnetic studies of rocks of Tibet, Indian continent and Indian Ocean
indicated that the IndiaAsia collision resulted in the sudden drop in the speed of
northward-moving India from 1819.5 cm year1 to 4.5 cm year1 at 55 Ma (Klootwijk et
al., 1992). Recent palaeomagnetic records of the Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks of the
northern margin of the Himalaya and adjacent Tibet demonstrate that the initial contact
took place at 6560 Ma, and the welding of the continents was completed by 5550 Ma
(Palzett et al., 1996).
364
Figure 2 (a) With its frontal prisms of Proterozoic to Lower Cambrian

sequence (called the Purana), and of Palaeozoic and Mesozoic
sedimentary rocks, the Indian plate converges towards mainland Asia
having ocean-trench sediments accreting against forearc-basin
succession at its southern margin. Volcanic and plutonic activities in
the Asian borderland preceded the collision of continents. (b) Colliding
with mainland Asia about 65 million years ago, India first docked
with the Kohistan and Ladakh island arcs (inset) of volcanoes
associated with oceanic-trench sediments at their southern margin.
The welding of the two continents along the Indus-Tsangpo Suture
(I-TS) was completed by 5055 Ma. Lined parts represent island-arc
complexes
Source: based on Gansser (1991); Le Fort (1989); and Valdiya (1998)
K.S. Valdiya
365
Pressure conditions during collision
Volcanoes, seamounts and ocean-floor rocks, together with deep-sea and oceanic trench
sediments were not only intricately folded and split repeatedly but also squeezed in the
vice-like grip of the collided continents (Gansser, 1977; Frank et al., 1977; Tahirkheli et
al., 1979; Thakur and Misra, 1984; Girardeau et al., 1984; Sinha and Upadhyay, 1994). A
part of the compressed complex was squeezed out or obducted and thrust southwards
several kilometres to form exotic blocks and nappes in the Tethyan sedimentary
domain. The unique mineralogies of the blue schists that developed from the tightly
compressed ultrabasicbasic rocks caught in collision indicate that the pressure in the
collsion zone had risen to 911 kbar (Frank et al., 1977; Honegger et al., 1982; Qasim Jan,
1987; Virdi, 1987).
IV
Deep seismic reflection profiling: structure of collision zone
Most earth scientists believe that the northern leading part of the Indian plate plunged
and slid 220400 km under the Asian plate (Patriat and Achache, 1984; Harrison et al.,
1992; Zhao et al., 1993). The double the normal thickness of the Tibetan crust and the
great elevation of >5000 m of the plateau are cited as proofs of the underthrusting of the
Indian plate under Asia.
The gravity anomaly pattern indicating 1015 bending-down of the Indian plate at
the point almost 50 km south of the I-TS, and the detachment of the crust from the
mantle (Lyon-Caen and Molnar, 1985) implies that the buoyancy of the material that
makes the frontal part of the Indian plate did not allow lighter Indian plate to plunge
under the Tibetan plate. The pronounced arching up of the leading edge of the Indian
plate is manifest in the development of the regional domal structure (Figure 3) made up
of basement rocks, comprising metamorphic rocks and 550 25-Ma-old granites,
extending from Nimaling in western Ladakh to Kangmar north of the Sagarmatha
(Everest) in northeastern Nepal. This feature is a pointer to the tremendous resistance
encountered by the Indian plate that prevented it from sliding under Asia (Valdiya,
1987, 1989). In the Kohistan region in northern Pakistan where the collision was very
severe and protracted slices of broken crust popped up and were propelled
southwards (Coward et al., 1988, Treloar et al., 1989).
Analysis of seismic anisotropy shows no sign of the Indian lithosphere extending
north of the I-TS (Hirn et al., 1995). The deep seismic reflections profiling shows only the
existence, up to a depth of 45 km, of a north-dipping decollement traceable to 28.66N,
which is south of the I-TS, and its ramping downwards near the base of the crust
beneath the northern Tethys domain (still south of the I-TS), as manifest in duplex-ramp
anticline and detachment of the hanging-wall crustal slice from the mantle-lithosphere
that presently extends upto 32N in Tibet (Hauck et al., 1998). There is no proof for or
against the presumption of the lower crust sliding beneath Tibet. However, the seismic
velocity structure and the magnitude of the Poissons ratio beneath southern Tibet has
been interpreted by others as indicating the current underthrusting of the Indian plate
under Tibet (Owens and Zandt, 1997). It seems that the collision of the continents
caused bending of the Indian lithosphere and consequent detachment from the lower
part and buckling up as an upwarp (Figure 1, inset and Figure 3) of the comparatively
buoyant upper crust, while the lower crust slid under Asia.
366
Figure 3 (a) Following the collision, the oceanic-trench sediments

along with the underlying ocean-floor basic and ultrabasic rocks were
squeezed up in the Indus-Tsangpo Suture Zone. The Tethyan
sedimentary domain was raised up and became an upland. Black
indicates oceanic crust. Source: after Valdiya (1998) (b) The relatively
lighter and buoyant frontal part of the northward-pressing Indian
crust (shown in black) buckled and broke up along a number of faults
in the Middle Eocene (3545 Ma). (c) The basement complex (black)
was thrust up along the Main Central Thrust (MCT) to form what later
became the Himadri ( Great Himalaya). Almost at the same time the
sedimentary cover of the Tethyan terrane was detached from this
basement and slipped northwards along the Trans-Himadri Fault (THF) known as South Tibetan Detachment Thrust in Nepal and
Zanskar Shear Zone in Himachal Pradesh. Differential melting of highgrade metamorphic rocks gave rise to granites (crosses). Source: after
Valdiya (1998)
K.S. Valdiya
367
Upwarp and water-divide
From the above it should be obvious that the buoyant front of the colliding continent
buckled up at its leading edge, giving rise to a series of domal structures all along the
collision zone (Figure 1, inset and Figure 3). Even the southern edge of the Tibetan
landmass was uplifted to a highland that sloped southwards. This is borne out by a
thermal event that accompanied this uplift. The zircon fission-track dates of 3545 Ma
from Kohistan (Zeitler et al., 1989; Chamberlain et al., 1991), Ladakh (Sorkhabi et al.,
1994), and Gangdese in southern Tibet (Hodges et al., 1994), the 40Ar/39Ar hornblende
ages of 4550 Ma, the muscovite Rb-Sr age of 35 Ma, and the monazite U-Pb age of
36 Ma from the granites in northwest Pakistan (Maluski and Matte, 1984; Zeitler and
Chamberlain, 1991; Chamberlain et al., 1991), the muscovite Rb-Sr age 34 3 Ma from
Langtang, the monazite U-Pb age of 36.3 0.4 Ma from Annapurna in Nepal (Inger and
Harris, 1992; Hodges et al., 1996), and the monazite Th-Pb ages of 3436 Ma from
Bhutan (Edwards and Harrison 1997) testify to the event that resulted in the uplift of
the northern zone. This culminated in unroofing and cooling of the uplifted rock bodies
in the Middle Eocene period (4535 Ma).
It seems that shortly after the collision of the continents, the land immediately north
of the collision zone rose up to become a highland or a water-divide (Figures 3 and 4).
The Kailas-Mansarovar region in southwestern Tibet formed a knot of sorts in this
water-divide. From this high spot directly in the line of NNESSW trending Aravali
Range in the Peninsular India sprang four great rivers of the Himalaya (Gansser, 1991;
Valdiya, 1998). The Sindhu (Indus) followed a northwesterly course, the Satluj went
southwestward, the Karnali took a southerly direction and the Tsangpo (Brahmaputra)
flowed eastwards (Figure 4). These rivers continued to flow in their channels they had
carved at the outset even after the mountain barriers rose progressively higher across
their paths in the next 35 to 45 million years (Valdiya, 1998).
V
Development of the foreland basin
While the leading part of the Indian crust bulged up in the north, a depression was
formed as a result of crustal sagging along the southern margin of the emerging
Himalaya 3545 million years ago (Figure 5). Some segments had subsided still earlier
in the Palaeocene. The depression invited incursion of the sea (Indian Ocean). This
foreland basin the Sirmaur Basin stretched from Sindh in Pakistan to the Jaintia Hills
in Meghalaya in the east. It was a shallow marine basin as evident from the nature of
the sediments, their sedimentary features and the fossils (Bhatia, 1982). Likewise,
another depression developed adjacent to the zone of collision (I-TSZ) in the north.
Waters of the Neotethys Ocean invaded this depression, perhaps representing the
remnants of the sea that was forced out when the continents collided. The two basins
along the northern and southern margins of the Himalayan province are perhaps contemporaries.
368
K.S. Valdiya
369
Immigration of Eurasiatic animals
The joining of India with mainland Asia (Figure 3(a)) started the immigration of a
variety of terrestrial fauna and flora from different parts of Eurasia. The first
appearance, particularly in the early (Subathu) part of the Himalayan foreland basin, of
mammals such as rhinocaratoids and brontotheras, which have striking resemblance to
and closer affinity with those of Eurasia (Sahni and Kumar, 1974; Sahni et al., 1981;
Sahni, 1999), indicate that by very early Eocene time, ~49 million years ago, paths of
migration across the rising Himalaya had been established. The fact that the horizon
containing mammalian fossils just overlies the molluscan-bearing strata in the
succession of the Subathu Formation (Figure 6) demonstrates that the animals that lived
in southern Tibet crossed over to the Indian landmass 4849 million years ago (Bajpai
and Gingerich, 1998).
A large variety of animals such as artiodactyls, turtles, crocodiles, fish and frogs made
dramatic appearances in the Kuldana and Kalakot areas in northwest Outer Himalaya
(Sahni and Kumar, 1974; Ranga Rao, 1993), in the Kirthar Hills in southern Pakistan and
in the Irrawaddy Valley in Myanmar (Wadia, 1975).
370
The discovery in the upper part of the KuldanaSubathu succession of Himalayacetus

subathuensis, a creature representing the transition from the terrestrial mammal to the
marine mammal at 53.5 Ma, and of Ambulocetus natans shows that it was in the subHimalayan domain that the whales first evolved from certain species of terrestrial
mammals (Kumar and Sahni, 1985; Bajpai and Gingerich, 1998).
Figure 6 Lithological column illustrates the order and nature of the

sediments derived predominantly from the emerging Himalaya and
deposited in the Foreland Basin during its lifespan. Time-range
constrained through palaeomagentic-polarity studies carried out in
different sectors
K.S. Valdiya
VI
1
371
Making of the Himadri (Great Himalaya)

Breaking up of Himalayan crust
The Himalayan province was overtaken by a powerful tectonic movement when the
northern part of the Indian crust broke up throughout its great length (Figure 3(a)),
along what has been described in the south as the Main Central Thrust, named by
Arnold Heim and Augusto Gansser in 1939, and in the north as the Trans-Himadri Fault
by Valdiya (1981, 1987, 1989, 1998). The outcome of compression and the attendant
break up of the crust was the thrusting up of the basement complex along the Main
Central Thrust (MCT), and the detachment from its foundation of the sedimentary
cover of the Tethyan terrane along the Trans-Himadri Fault (T-HF). This extension fault
is described as the South Tibetan Detachment Thrust in Nepal (Burg et al., 1984;
Burchfiel and Royden, 1985) and as the Zanskar Shear Zone in Himachal Pradesh
(Searle, 1986; Hernn, 1987; Sinha, 1989).
The basement complex comprises high-grade metamorphic rocks intruded by 550
25-Ma-old porphyritic granites. The basement complex was thrust up almost synchronously along and in between the MCT and T-HF as a stupendous lithotectonic slab,
giving rise to the Great Himalaya or Himadri (Figure 3(b), (c)). Repeated and strong
movements along these delimiting faults are evident from the wide zones of shearing
and pronounced mylonitization or milling of rocks that occur as overlapping sheets
characterized by a multiplicity of planes of gliding and sliding.
2
Physical conditions of metamorphism
The mineral assemblages of various metamorphic rocks that constitute the Himadri
complex indicate pressures of the order of 610 kbar (locally as high as 12 kbar) and
temperatures in the range of 600C to 800C (Lal et al., 1981; Valdiya and Goel, 1983;
LeFort, 1986; Pecher and Le Fort, 1986; Hodges and Silverberg, 1988; Mohan et al., 1989;
Metcalfe, 1993; Harris and Massey, 1994; Vance and Harris, 1999), implying burial of
these rocks to a depth of 2535 km (Manickavasagam et al., 1999; Valdiya et al., 2000)
before being thrust up as the Himadri high. The metamorphism occurred at a
temperature of 750C just above the MCT. The prograde metamorphism of the Himadri
terrane was followed subsequently by intense shearing and attendant retrograde metamorphism in the zones of MCT and T-HF, much stronger and protracted in the former.
This is evident from the mineral assemblage characterized by green micaceous-chlorite
minerals.
3
Differential melting and granite generation
Under high temperaturepressure conditions at greater depths the PT path in some

sectors resulted in differential melting or anataxis of the high grade metamorphic rocks
(Figure 3(c)). The molten material of granitic composition was strikingly leucocratic in
colour, rich in black tourmaline and characterized by high strontium isotope ratios, and
the presence of high-grade metamorphic minerals such as sillimanite, garnet and
cordierite. These minerals betray the metamorphic parentage of the granite melt. The
molten material of granite composition penetrated and permeated the metamorphic
372
country rocks leaf-by-leaf to form mixed rocks or migmatites (Valdiya and Goel, 1983;
Valdiya et al., 2000). Formed as they were in the upper part of the Himadri complex, the
granites intruded not only the metamorphic succession as stocks, bosses, laccoliths,
dykes and veins, but also the overlying sedimentary succession of the Tethyan domain.
The holy peaks of Badarinath and Kedarnath in the central sector of the Himalaya are
made of thick laccoliths of this anatectic granite (Searle et al., 1993; Scaillet et al., 1995).
Contact metamorphism caused by the intrusion of large bodies of granite raised the
grade of metamorphism, giving rise to what has been described as inverted metamorphism (Arita, 1983; Jain and Manickavasagam, 1993; Harrison et al., 1997). However,
this inversion of grade of metamorphism seems to be more apparent than real (Sorkhabi
and Arita, 1997; Valdiya et al., 2000).
The formation of the anatectic granites took place in the temporal span of 2518 Ma,
the peak being at 21 0.5 Ma (Le Fort, 1989; Trivedi, 1990; Gapais et al., 1992; Noble and
Searle, 1995; Schneider et al., 1999). This is indicated by the Th-Pb monazite and U-Pb
zircon ages on the minerals occurring in the granites.
4
Timing of upthrusting
The climactic phase of the orogenic movements was accompanied by widespread

formation and emplacement of the granitic magma during the peak stages of prograde
metamorphism. The thermochronological data obtained from fission-track dating of
apatite and zircon, combined with 40Ar/39Ar hornblende ages and U-Pb zircon and ThPb monazite ages from the granites of different parts of the Himadri terrane (Daniel et
al., 1987; Hubbard and Harrison, 1989; Metcalfe, 1993; Sorkhabi et al., 1993; Noble and
Searle, 1995; Harrison et al., 1997) constrain the timing of thrust movements to between
21 and 25 Ma, mostly between 22 and 23 Ma. Significantly, monazite from mylonitic
migmatite schist of the MCT zone in Nepal suggests the metamorphism of the
amphibolite grade beginning at 22 Ma and lasting until 18 Ma (Coleman, 1998). The age
of the dykes intruding the rocks is also 18 Ma.
The detachment of the Tethyan sedimentary cover from its foundation (the Himadri
basement complex) along the T-HF (Figures 3(c) and 7(b)) was accompanied by
eastwest extension, which took place in the 1922 Ma period in the Nepalese Tethyan
terrane (Pecher et al., 1991; Burchfiel and Royden, 1985) and in the period 2025 Ma in
the Zanskar Range in Himachal Pradesh (Vance and Harris, 1999; Inger, 1998) that is,
in the Early Miocene at ~22 Ma.
5
Southward thrusting of basement rocks
Quite a large part of the upthrust up material of the basement complex was simultaneously pushed (or thrust) tens of kilometres southwards onto the Lesser Himalayan
sedimentary succession belonging to the Middle Proterozoic to Lower Cambrian
timespan. In the central sector in the Kumaun Himalaya the width of thrusting is of the
order of 95110 km (Valdiya, 1980, 1988) and in eastern Nepal the thrust sheets have
advanced 140 km from their roots (Arita et al., 1997). The overthrust masses occur as
smaller outcrops (klippen) and vast sheets or nappe (Figure 7), now concordantly
folded with the underlying Proterozoic sedimentary rocks during later phases of
K.S. Valdiya
373
Figure 7 (a) Sketch map shows the distribution of the high-grade

metamorphic rocks associated with 500 25-Ma-old porphyritic and
20 1-Ma-old leucogranite granite forming the Himadri or Great
Himalaya terrane in the northern part, and of the low-grade
metamorphic rocks associated with 1900 100-Ma-old porphyry and
porphyritic granite as well as 500 25-Ma granite forming the nappes
and klippen that rest on the Proterozoic- to Lower Cambrian (Purana)
sedimentary succession of the Lesser Himalaya (Valdiya, 1998).
(b) Section illustrates the concept of basement rocks advancing along
the MCT and overriding the Lesser Himalayan sedimentary
succession. Note the detachment of the basement Himadri complex
from its Tethyan sedimentary cover along the T-HF
orogenic movement (Valdiya, 1980, 1988; Saklani, 1983; Schelling and Arita, 1991;
Schelling, 1992).
In contrast with the metamorphic rocks of the Himadri complex, the Lesser
Himalayan metamorphic rocks travelled a different PTt path. The metamorphism
took place in the Kumaun Himalaya in a temperature range of 250450C under a
pressure of 36 kbar (Valdiya and Goel, 1983) and, in eastern Nepal, a peak temperature
of 550C was obtained at the base at around 6 Ma, while 600C was reached at the top
374
around 15 Ma (Harrison et al., 1998). The implication is that the two assemblages of
metamorphic rocks (Lesser and Great Himalayan) were physically quite separated
when they underwent metamorphism. In other words, the two assemblages have had
different thermotectonic scenarios.
VII
1
Beginning of continental sedimentation

Final retreat of the sea
Magnetic-polarity study puts the upper limit of the Subathu succession (Figure 6) at
42.6 Ma (Pangtey, 1999). The marine water of the Subathu basin retreated, even as deltas
and flood plains of the Himalayan rivers prograded onto the foreland basin
(Raiverman, 1979, 1997; Raiverman et al., 1983). Magnetic-polarity study of the
Dharmsala in Himachal Pradesh indicates that the fluvial sedimentation in the
continental setting commenced at 23.55 Ma (Pangtey, 1999). An horizon of conglomerate at the base of the succeeding Murree Formation in the Kohat-Potwar basin in
Pakistan indicates an haitus the end of the marine sedimentation and beginning of the
fluvial deposition (Figure 6). The fluvial basin encompassed a large belt that stretched
from Sindh through Murree in northwestern Outer Himalaya, Dharmsala and DagshaiKasauli in Himachal and Dumri in Nepal to the Surma Valley and Barail Hills in Assam.
2
Temporal span: magnetic-polarity zonation
Fissiontrack dates younger than 30 Ma of the minerals from the basal Dharmsala
( Murree) succession (Figure 6) that overlies the Subathu without apparent break, point
to the time gap between the two stratigraphic formations (Najman et al., 1999). The
magnetic-polarity zonation of the Dharmsala succession in Himachal Pradesh demonstrates a timespan of more than 9 million years, extending from 23.55 Ma at the base of
the Dagshai Formation through 18.9 Ma at the base of the Kasauli Formation (Pangtey,
1999). The magnetically determined date for the top of the Kasauli is not consistent with
the established chronostratigraphy.
There is thus a major break represented by a time gap of >15 million years between
the marine Subathu and the fluvial Murree (Dharmsala Dagshai + Kasauli). The
Dharmsala is the equivalent of the Murree in Pakistan. This break remained undetected
until very recently. The hiatus is discernible also in Nepal between the marine Eocene
(Bhainskoti) and the fluvial Dumri (DeCelles et al., 1998). Taking this in conjunction
with the conglomerate at the base of the Murree in Potwar, this recently detected gap
establishes a regional unconformity spanning the whole of the Oligocene period. A
tectonic event of considerable consequence is indicated, necessitating a major revision
in the stratigraphic scheme of the sub-Himalaya.
3
Drastic drainage reversal
The sediments represented by the Murree-Dharmsala-Dumri Formations were

deposited by rivers that drained the rapidly rising Himalaya and flowed in WSW, SW,
S and SSE directions in Nepal and Himachal sectors (Srivastava and Casshyap, 1983;
K.S. Valdiya
375
Najman et al., 1993; DeCelles et al., 1998) and eastwards in the Pakistani region (Waheed
and Wells, 1990). This is evident from the sediment dispersal pattern as unravelled from
the analysis of palaeocurrent directions. It may be pointed out that until this time all the
rivers of northern India had flowed in a northerly direction since the Precambrian
(Valdiya, 1980, 1998). There was thus a drastic reversal of the drainage direction,
implying tectonic upheaval in the Oligocene that created a water-divide and a
provenance of detritus in the north in the Himalayan province. In other words, the
newly emergent Himalaya started delivering sediments even as new river systems
established their drainage on the rising upland. The occurrence in the basal Dharmsala
and Dumri of sand-sized fragments of low-grade metamorphic rocks typical of the
Lesser Himalayan nappes corroborates the inference that the Lesser Himalayan
ranges had become sufficiently high to be eroded by rivers by the beginning of the
Murree-Dharmsala time.
4
Fluvial basin in collision zone
The tectonic movements in the Oligocene gave rise to yet another depression in the
IndiaAsia collision zone occupied by the rivers Tsangpo and Sindhu (Indus). A
molasse succession of conglomerate and arkosic sandstone more than 2000 m thick
forms the Kailas Conglomerate resting on the Ladakh-Kailas-Gangdese Granites
(Gansser, 1977, 1981, 1991; Mathur, 1983; Garzenti and Haver, 1988). It is traceable from
Kargil in western Ladakh, through Kailas in the middle, to southern Tibet. The molasse
assemblage was deposited in the channels and floodplains of the rivers that alternately
meandered and flowed as braided systems in the floodplain (Brookfield and AndrewsSpeed, 1984; Kumar and Virdi, 1997). The granites of the Ladakh-Kailas-Gangdese
ranges were the predominant suppliers of the detritus. In Pakistan the 200 km-long
Katawaz basin and in Myanmar the Irrawaddy Valley contain the equivalents of the
Kailas molasse.
Remains of palms, rosewood and charophytes indicate that a warm and moist
climate then prevailed in the Sindhu-Tsangpo floodplains, which could not have been
higher than 2100 m above sea level in elevation (Lakhanpal et al., 1983). Since palms
commonly occur below 1700 m elevation, the Himalaya mountain could not have risen
higher than 1700 m in the time 1623 million years ago. At present the conglomerate
occurs at an altitude exceeding 5000 m. The fossils of vertebrates of strong Eurasian
affinity such as crocodiles, turtles, rodents, python-like snakes, small-sized vegetarian
mammals such as goats and deer in the upper Sindhu Valley (Nanda and Sahni, 1990,
1998) not only corroborate the evidence provided by plants of warm-moist climate and
gentle, mild, topography at lower altitude, but also indicate their time the later Upper
Oligocene to Middle Miocene more probably the early Miocene time as evidenced by
bivalves and gastropods (Mathur, 1983).
Very similar vertebrate animals lived in the Bugti Hills in southwestern Pakistan
during the same period, which implies free intermigration of animals across the
Himalayan domain in early Miocene time. Possibly the Himalayan domain had not
become sufficiently high and rugged to impede or prevent the movements of fourfooted animals as bulky as rhinos by the Early Miocene time.
376
VIII
Development of MBT and Siwalik Basin
Revival of movement on MBT
Shortly after the T-HF and MCT were formed in the northern part, the crust in southern
Himalaya broke along a series of faults known as the Main Boundary Thrust the name
given in 1864 by H.D. Medlicott to one of the faults in southeastern Himachal Pradesh.
Presently steeply inclined at the surface, the MBT flattens to less than 20 at depth. It is
the plane along which the Indian shield carrying the prisms of sediments
accumulated in the Siwalik and Ganga basins has been sliding under the Himalaya.
As the Lesser Himalaya rose up along the MBT, the ground south of the uplifted
mountain sagged and became an elongate foreland basin the Siwalik Basin (see Figure
8). It extended from Sindh in Pakistan, through Jammu in the northwest, the Siwalik
area in the central sector (Figure 11), the Dihing region in Arunachal Pradesh to the
Tipam terrain in the Tripura-Cachar region in the east.
2
Timespan and rates of sedimentation
Magnetic-polarity stratigraphy of the Siwalik in the Potwar Basin in Pakistan (Johnson

et al., 1982), the Jammu basin in northwestern Outer Himalaya (Ranga Rao et al., 1988;
Figure 8 Formation of the Main Boundary Thrust (MBT) possibly at

19 0.5 Ma, caused the uplift of the Lesser Himalaya, its accelerated
erosion and consequent brisk deposition of detritus in the form of the
Siwalik succession
Source: section (a) modified after B. Mascle in Valdiya (1998). Block
diagram (b) after Tokuoka et al. (1994)
K.S. Valdiya
377
Ranga Rao, 1993), Himachal Pradesh (Johnson et al., 1983; Tandon et al., 1984; Sangode
et al., 1996) and eastern Nepal (Appel et al., 1991; Gautam and Appel, 1994; Gautam and
Fujiwara, 1999) has constrained the chronological limits of the lower, middle and upper
division of the Siwalik succession at 18.3 Ma, 11.0 Ma, 5.3 Ma and 0.22 Ma, respectively
the main temporal span being 16 to 5 Ma (Figure 6).
A colossal volume of sediments brought by a myriad of rivers was laid down at a
very fast rate, converting the vast foreland basin into extensive floodplains. The rivers
migrated laterally, forming coalescing fans of detritus and building multistoried sand
complexes (Kumar and Tandon, 1985; Kumar and Nanda, 1989; Tandon, 1991; Kumar et
al., 1999). Although very fast, the rate of sediment deposition varied from sector to
sector and over time. It was 10 cm per 1000 years in the Lower Siwalik and 30 cm per
1000 years in the Middle Siwalik of the Potwar Basin (Johnson et al., 1982) and 2171 cm
per 1000 years in the Upper Siwalik of the Jammu Basin (Ranga Rao et al., 1988). In the
Himachal basin the rate of sedimentation was 3040 cm per 1000 years during the
Middle Siwalik time and 4050 cm per 1000 years in the Upper Siwalik (Pangtey, 1999).
In eastern Nepal the average sedimentation rate of LowerMiddle Siwalik time was 33
cm per 1000 years, peaking at 4850 cm per 1000 years in the brief interval of 910 Ma
(Gautam and Fujiwara, 1999).
Towards the end of the Siwalik period the deposition of detritus had become very fast
when excessive floods of extremely coarse gravelly muddy material overwhelmed the
basin. The resultant 1800- to 2800-m-thick formation, represented by the Upper Siwalik
Boulder Conglomerate, covered a vast belt extending from Sindh in the west to
Mizoram in the east. The gravelly detritus was derived from the collapse and erosion of
the uplifted hanging walls of faulted blocks within the Siwalik and from the Outer
Lesser Himalaya (Raiverman et al., 1983; Kumar and Tandon, 1985; Tandon, 1991;
Kumar et al., 1999). Obviously, not only the Lesser Himalaya but also the Siwalik basin
itself was caught in the tectonic turmoil in late Quaternary time.
3
Heavy minerals recording uplift history
The absence of heavy minerals of metamorphic parentage in the Dharmsala-Dumri

successions shows that until the Early Miocene the Himadri (Great Himalaya) had not
started yielding detritus. The appearance of garnet and staurolite in the Lower Siwalik
signified exhumation of the lower-grade metamorphic assemblage. However, the characteristic presence of kyanite, along with staurolite and epidote in the Middle Siwalik
(Chaudhri, 1984) implies unroofing following uplift of the Himadri complex of highgrade metamorphic rocks. Thus by the beginning of the Late Miocene in the temporal
interval of 11.55.1 Ma the Himadri rocks had been thrust up and exposed to erosion
because of very strong tectonic movements.
The order of the occurrence of heavy mineral suites in the Siwalik succession has
great bearing on the history of tectonic movements, structural emplacement and
unroofing of the Himalayan terranes. The appearance of garnet and staurolite in the
Lower Siwalik (18.311.0 Ma) was followed by kyanite in the Middle Siwalik (11.05.3
Ma), and by sillimanite in the Upper Siwalik (5.31.6 Ma). It may be concluded that the
lower-grade metamorphic rocks at the top of the succession were the first to be exposed
and eroded away, and the highest-grade rocks at the bottom were the last to be
378
unroofed. This is a perfectly normal order of things. It follows that there was no
inversion of metamorphism, as a very large number of geologists believe. On the
contrary, the peculiar situation is the product of differential uplift and attendant
denudation of the metamorphic zones, probably related to imbricate thrusting and
internal ductile shearing of rocks (Sorkhabi and Arita, 1997).
IX
1
Impacts of Late Miocene events

Emergence of mountain barrier
The apatite fission-track date indicate revival of movements at 8 Ma along the MBT in
Kohat (Meigs et al., 1995) and the muscovite cooling and Th-Pb monazite ages suggest
reactivation of the MCT in northwestern Himalaya and Nepal at 68 Ma (Sorkhabi et al.,
1996; Harrison et al., 1997). Nearly contemporaneously, the Tibetan landmass was split
by NS trending tension faults at 8 1 Ma (Armijo et al., 1989) and the Indian Ocean
crust was considerably deformed between 7.5 and 8 Ma (Cochran, 1990; Krishna et al.,
1998). The Late Miocene tectonic events in the Himalaya are reflected in many changes
that took place (Figure 9).
The abrupt 2.5-fold increase of sediment accumulation in the Potwar Basin at 11 Ma
(Burbank et al., 1986) and in the Nepalese Arungkhola at 10 Ma (Tokuoka et al., 1994)
and at 9 Ma in the Tinaukhola (Gautam and Appel, 1994) corroborate the postulation
that suddenly a high mountain appeared and was briskly eroded (Figure 9(a)). The first
appearance of kyanite in the heavy mineral assemblage along with sand-size gneiss
grains in the Middle Siwalik at 9.2 Ma (Hisatomi, 1996) implies that the Himadri (Great
Himalaya) rose up as a high barrier 910 million years ago. Neodymium, strontium and
oxygen-isotope compositional similarities demonstrate the derivation of the IndianOcean sediments from the Himalayan crystalline terranes (France-Lanord et al., 1993).
Abundance of calcic amphibole at 10.9 Ma and other heavy minerals between 7.5 and
10.9 Ma in the Bengal Fan deposits in the Bay of Bengal (Amano and Taira, 1992),
coupled with a many-fold increase in sediment influx to the northern Indian Ocean
(Figure 9(b)) supports the deduction of rapid uplift of the Himadri in the Late Miocene
(Gartner, 1990; Rea, 1992).
The intensity of sediment influx to the ocean is further borne out by an abrupt
increase from 0.5% to 2% in the Arabian Sea at 9 Ma of land-derived organic matter
(Meyers and Dickens, 1992). The organic matter was transported with the clayey
material derived from denudation of the vegetation-covered Lesser Himalaya that was
exposed to erosion in the Late Miocene. Not only the organic matter but also the
phosphorous content and the Ge/Si ratio in opaline silica of diatoms and the strontiumisotope ratio in the seawater increased perceptibly during that period (Filippeli, 1997).
2
Onset of monsoon
The fast-rising Himadri must have become high to disrupt the west-to-east flow of air
currents and brought the low-pressure area southwards over northern India. The lowpressure area attracted moist summer winds from the Indian Ocean and caused spells
of heavy rainfall. The sudden appearance of endemic upwelling species in the Indian
K.S. Valdiya
379
Ocean planktonic assemblages (Figure 9(c)) between 7.4 and 8.5 Ma (Prell et al., 1992)
indicate activation of upwelling currents, which must have been set in motion at 8 Ma
by the southwest monsoon winds.
Figure 9 Abrupt change in climate conditions in the Late Miocene is

indicated by three independent lines of evidence. (a) Sketch map
shows excessive delivery of sediments by the fast-rising Himalaya
during the climactic phase of its evolution. The sediments were
deposited in the foreland basin and spilled over onto the Indian Ocean.
(Source: after Graham et al., 1975). (b) Sudden excessive influx of
sediments at 8.5 Ma (also at 10.5 Ma, 2.0 Ma and 0.8 Ma) in the
northern Indian Ocean (Rea, 1992), indicating accelerated erosion in
the Himalayan province. (c) Increase in endemic upwelling species in
the planktonic population of the northern Indian Ocean at 8.57.4 Ma
interval, implying activities of upwelling currents that must have been
set in motion by the southwest monsoon that had set in in the Late
Miocene (Prell et al., 1992). (d) Increase in the content of C13-isotope in
the carbonates of the Siwalik soils in the interval 7.46.0 Ma in the
Potwar Basin (Pakistan), implying advent of the vegetation dominated
by tall grasses and scattered shrubs (Quade et al., 1989)
380
Thus, the monsoon climate, characterized by alternating long dry and shorter wet
seasons, was initiated in the Late Miocene when the Himalaya attained a critical height
(Molnar et al., 1993; Sakai, 1997; Valdiya, 1999).
3
Climate vicissitude
The onset of the monsoon climate brought about a considerable change in the
vegetation and animal life in the floodplains of the Siwalik domain. Under the warm
humid climate that prevailed earlier, in early Siwalik time, the floodplains were clothed
with thick rain forests supporting a richly varied animal life comprising reptiles, rhinos,
buffaloes, cows, deer, goats and primates, among others. Then there was a drastic
transition in the floral world between 7.5 and 10 Ma the evergreen tropical trees (C3vegetation) gave way to tall grasses with scattered shrubs (C4-vegetation) at 6.07.4 Ma
in the Potwar Basin (Quade et al., 1989) and at 78 Ma in southeastern Nepal (Harrison
et al., 1993). This inference is based on strong variation in carbon isotope (d13C) values
in the carbonates of the Siwalik soil (Figure 9(d)).
4 Invasion of mammals
The expansion of grasslands in the Siwalik realm attracted grazing animals from neighbouring lands from as far as Africa, Europe and Central Asia. The immigration of
quadrupeds brought about major faunal turnovers in the time 7.59.5 Ma. The introduction of exotic fauna and the resultant marginalization or even extermination of the
indigenous animals such as rhinos, buffaloes and cows, brought about substantial
changes in the composition of Siwalik life. In northern Pakistan, for instance, the
development of arid conditions caused change in the muroid rodent species 79 Ma ago
(Flynn and Jacobs, 1982). Three-toed horse Hipparion, along with pigs, appeared at 9.5
Ma, the former having come all the way from Europe. The bovid Selenoportax came from
Africa about 7.4 million years ago. The proboscid Stegodon, along with hippopotamus
Hexaprotodon, came around 5.3 Ma (Barry et al., 1985) (subsequently the elephant Elephas
planifrons came from Africa ~3.6 million years ago, and at about 2.5 Ma the Equus horse
arrived from Alaska).
The movement of the big-bodied heavy-footed quadrupeds across the Himalaya
province in the Late Miocene indicates that although the mountain had risen up high,
it still was not sufficiently high in some sectors to prevent the passage of the heavy and
big animals (Valdiya, 1993, 1998). A few corridors could have been enough for
immigration. However, considering the wide distribution of the bulky animals in Tibet,
Outer Lesser Himalaya (in Kashmir and Nepal) and the Siwalik, more than just
corridors were needed to allow heavy traffic and widespread dispersal of the
quadrupeds (Valdiya, 1998).
K.S. Valdiya
Crustal extensions and intermontane lakes
Fault reactivation: thermochronological evidence
381
The Indian Ocean crust experienced deformation at 4 and 2 Ma (Krishna et al., 1998).
The Himalayan province, likewise, was subjected to tectonic movement in the period
Figure 10 Heavy-bodied bulky quadrupeds such as hippopotomi,

rhinos and elephants, living in the Kashmir and Jammu basins 24
million years ago had very close affinity, implying free intermigration.
They could not have moved freely across the dividing Pir Panjal,
presently >4500 m high if it had been such a high and rugged range
during the Pliocene to Early Pleistocene period as it presently is. In
the lower diagram the columns on the two sides of the Pir Panjal
show lithological successions in which fossils of these bulky animals
are found
382
24 Ma. This is quite obvious from the 2- to 4-Ma fission-track apatite and zircon dates
of the rocks of the MBT and MCT zones. The 2.7 Ma age from the Ampipal massif in the
outer Nepal Himalaya (Gautam and Koshimizu, 1991), the 2.3 Ma number of the
KaliGandaki-Modikhola belt close to the MCT (Arita and Ganzawa, 1997), the 2.4 Ma
date from the Gangotri Granite massif in Garhwal (Sorkhabi et al., 1996), and the 4.0 Ma
age from the Zanskar Range in northern Himachal (Kumar et al., 1995) point to the time
of the cooling of minerals following uplift and resultant denudation.
2
River ponding
The upper reaches of the KaliGandaki River in north-central Nepal experienced

eastwest extension along NS tension faults, resulting in the evolution of the
Thakkhola Graben. The basin is represented by a ~900-m-thick succession of lower
lacustrine and upper fluvial sediments of the Pliocene to Early Pleistocene age (2.53.0
Ma) (Fort et al., 1982). In mid-central Nepal the ponding of the Bagmati River as a result
of uplift along active faults of the MBT zone of the Mahabharat Range resulted in the
development of a lake in the Kathmandu Basin comprising 13001500-m-thick
sediments. Magnetostratigraphic zonation places the Kathmandu lake succession in the
1.02.8 Ma range Late Pliocene to early Middle Pleistocene (Yoshida and Gautam,
1989). Among the vertebrates found, mention may be made of Elephas planifrons,
Stegodon ganesa (both elephants), Hexaprotodon sivalensis (hippopotamus) and crocodile
Crocodylus (Dongol, 1985).
A very similar vertebrate assemblage (except Crocodylus) is found in the 1300-m
succession of the Karewa Lake, nestling between the high Zanskar and Pir Panjal range
in the Kashmir Valley (Figure 11). The Karewa Lake originated when the Pir Panjal was
uplifted along the Panjal Thrust (Figure 7), blocking the flow of the Jhelum River. The
impoundment lasted from 4.0 to 0.4 Ma in the Plio-Pleistocene period (Bhatt, 1976;
Burbank and Johnson, 1983; Agrawal et al., 1989; Kotlia, 1990). A similar blockade of the
Sindhu (Indus) River and its tributaries, the Kabul and Swat rivers, caused by renewed
movements at 2.8 Ma on the thrust delimiting the Attock Range gave rise to the
lacustrine Peshawar Basin (Burbank and Tahirkheli, 1985). The Sindhu was similarly
ponded upstream in the Skardu Basin in the interval 3.20.73 Ma (Cronin, 1989).
South of the Pir Panjal Range in the Nagrota basin of Jammu (Figure 11) the Upper
Siwalik succession comprises the same assemblage of vertebrate fossils as of the
Karewa, plus Archidiskondon and Crocodylus (Ranga Rao et al., 1988). The striking
resemblance and affinities of the fauna of the Kathmandu, Karewa and Nagrota basins
across the presently lofty and far separated Pir Panjal and Mahabharat ranges imply
that during Late Pliocene time the large-bodied heavy-footed animals could migrate
freely across what are today very high and difficult mountains. The climate must have
been quite warm and moist, so essential for the survival and proliferation of these
swamp/water-loving animals.
K.S. Valdiya
383
Figure 11 (a) Partitioning along the Himalayan Frontal Fault (HFF) of

the Neogene foreland basin into the rising hilly Siwalik terrane (horizontally lined), and the subsiding depression which was soon filled
with fluvial sediments and converted to the IndoGangetic Plains
(stippled). Source: modified after Burbank (1992). (b) In the Late
Miocene to Quaternary period the Lesser Himalaya was thrust
southwards along the MBT and still later the foreland basin was
partitioned because of formation of the Himalayan Frontal Fault (HFF)
(incipient fault shown in broken line). Source: section from Valdiya
(1998)
XI
Developments in the Quaternary period
Tectonic disturbance of exceptional severity
The beginning of the Quaternary witnessed very strong spurts of tectonic activity
(Valdiya, 1998). Crustal disturbances of exceptional severity convulsed the outer ranges
of the Lesser Himalaya and the very terrane of the Siwalik in the proximity of the MBT
(Figure 11). The mountain front virtually collapsed and enormous landslides ravaged
the hillslopes even as resultant debris flows carried the gravels and muds to dump in
384
the Siwalik basin (Valdiya, 1998). The result was the 18002800 m-thick Upper Siwalik
Boulder Conglomerate. The accumulation took place at a very fast rate 21 to 71 cm per
1000 years in the Jammu sector (Ranga Rao et al., 1988) and 4050 cm per 1000 years in
the Himachal (Pangtey, 1999).
Layers of bentonitic clays which turned out to be altered volcanic ash intercalated with the conglomerate are suggestive of the events in the interval 1.51.7 Ma, which
occurred during the temporal span of the Upper Siwalik gravels (Burbank et al., 1986;
Ranga Rao, 1993).
2
Proof of fault reactivation
Fission-track apatite and zircon dates of the thrust-zone rocks bear testimony to uplift
and attendant exhumation-cooling at the beginning of the Quaternary. The 1.6 Ma age
in the MBT zone in the Ampipal massif in Nepal (Gautam and Koshimizu, 1991), the
12 Ma age in the MCT zone in the KaliGandaki-Modikhola valleys in Nepal (Arita and
Ganzawa, 1997), the 1.5 Ma age in the T-HF zone in the Gangotri Granite massif in
Garhwal (Sorkhabi et al., 1996) and the 1.7 Ma date in the Zanskar Shear Zone in
northern Himachal (Kumar et al., 1995), show that the fault reactivation occurred
approximately 1.6 million years ago at the PliocenePleistocene boundary interval.
3
Partitioning of foreland basin
Sometime in the later part of the Pleistocene, probably around 0.8 Ma, intense
compression of the Siwalik Basin culminated in the emergence of the Siwalik Hills
closer to the MBT, and in the breaking up of the foreland basin (Figures 11 and 12) along
the Himalayan Frontal Fault (Nakata, 1984, 1989) also described the Main Frontal
Thrust (Gansser, 1991). The rupturing was possibly synchronous with the last phase of
the major reactivation of the MCT after the Middle Pleistocene (Raiverman, 1997). It
broke the large foreland basin into two unequal parts the northern 25- to 45-km-wide
part becoming the Siwalik terrane of the rising hills, and the southern 200450-km-wide
subsiding part developing into the Sindhu-Ganga-Brahmaputra Basin. This part was
later filled up with sediments and became the IndoGangetic Plains (Figure 11). The
Siwalik terrane is >45 km wide in the Jammu region but attenuates to less than 25 km
in eastern Arunachal Pradesh. This is because the Himalayan Frontal Fault (HFF) cuts
the Siwalik obliquely.
4
Oceanic record of accelerated erosion
Study of lake sediments in eastern Tibet indicates that there was a phase of uplift
around 0.8 Ma (in addition to those around 0.36 Ma and 0.16 Ma) of the plateau (Xue et
al., 1998). The record of the Bengal Fan in the northern Indian Ocean (Figure 9(b)) shows
shooting up of sediment deposition (Amano and Taira, 1992) from 20 to 70 m Ma1 to
more than 200 m Ma1 in the period 0.90.8 Ma (Gartner, 1990). The fine sediments
comprising smectite and kaolinite abruptly gave way to coarse clastics with
subordinate finer sediments consisting of dominant illite and chlorite (France-Lanord et
K.S. Valdiya
385
al., 1993). These facts point to tectonically induced speeding up of erosion in the
Himalayan terranes. In the Arabian Sea there was an increase in the influx of landderived organic matter at 0.85 Ma (Meyers and Dickens, 1992), implying that organicrich soils covering terrains of the Himalaya presumably in the Lesser Himalaya were
subjected to considerable denudation in the interval 0.80.9 Ma.
Taking into consideration the overwhelming evidence of sudden acceleration of
erosion in the temporal interval 0.80.9 Ma in Tibet, in the Indo-Gangetic Plains and in
the northern Indian Ocean, one is inclined to agree with Gansser (1983, 1991) that it was
Figure 12 Major events in the evolutionary history of the Himalaya

leading to its emergence as the worlds highest mountain
386
during the Quaternary that the Himalaya rose spectacularly to attain its present height.
Testimonies of vertebrate animals, including rhinos and Hipparion horse, plants and
palynospores support the postulation that the Tibetan landmass (together with
Himalaya) rose rapidly to its elevation above 5000 m in the Quaternary (Xu, 1981;
Shackleton and Chang, 1988). However, this view has been strongly contested by many
workers (Fort, 1996) who believe that the Himalaya-Tibet province has been progressively rising all through the Cenozoic era (Figure 12).
XII
Advent of the ice age
The 0.8 Ma event of uplift must have made the Himalaya even higher than it earlier had
become. Naturally, cooler conditions conducive to refrigeration developed in the higher
realms of the Himadri, leading to the initiation of glaciation. Colder conditions, a
precursor to the glaciation, had set in as early as the Late Pliocene, as testified to by the
appearance in the Karewa in the Kashmir Valley of micro-vertebrates such as rodents
Kilarcola and Microtus, which were very prolific in the colder region of contemporary
Europe (Kotlia, 1990).
The glaciers spread far and wide in the Potwar, Kashmir, Ladakh and Tibetan regions.
There were four successive advances of glaciers from the higher levels, the oldest
descending to the level of 1675 m above sea level, and the youngest reaching down to
2400 m above the mean sea level (Wadia, 1975). New data show that the glaciations
were not synchronous throughout the region. In some areas they were most extensive
during 6030 ka and in other places during the global maximum at 1820 ka (Benn and
Owens, 1998).
XIII
1
Events after the ice age

Stream ponding and lake formation
Movements on active faults caused blockades of rivers and streams in practically all the
four terranes. Lakes were formed in the essentially fluvial environment, such as the
Skardu in the Karakoram domain (Owen and Derbyshire, 1993), the Lamayuru in
western Ladakh (Fort et al., 1989; Bagati et al., 1997), the Tsokar in southeastern Ladakh
(Bhargava, 1990; Bhargava and Bassi, 1998), the Goting in northern Kumaun (Pant et al.,
1998), the Wadda in eastern Kumaun (Valdiya et al., 1996), the Bhimtal in southcentral
Kumaun (Kotlia et al., 1997) and the Rara in western Nepal (Yasuda and Tabata; 1988).
The thermoluminescence dates of fault gouges of the causative faults in Himachal and
Kumaun, taken in conjunction with the radiocarbon dates of the basal lacustrine
sediments, suggest that these neotectonic lakes must have originated between 60 and
40 ka (Singhvi et al., 1994; Banerjee et al., 1999).
2
Epochs of high rainfall and aridity
After the large part of the Himadri domain had been affected by glaciation, the
southwest monsoon slackened, bringing about climate change. Heavy rains gave way
to spells of cold dry conditions. The glaciers had left behind large volumes of gravels
K.S. Valdiya
387
and fine sediments in the Kashmir Valley. The cold dry winds blew away the finer
material and spread it far and wide as loess. The Karewa Lake formation was covered
with the 25-m-thick mantle of this loess. Within the sucession of the loess quite a few
horizons of palaeosols and locally lenses of lignite occur. These horizons represent
interludes of warm humid climate within the otherwise long periods of dry frigid
climate (Pant et al., 1985; Singhvi et al., 1987). The prolonged period of Pleistocene cold
dryness persisted until about 11 ka, as the records preserved in the multiplicity of
neotectonic lakes demonstrate.
The Late Pleistocene long cold-dry climate became progressively wetter and warmer
as the southwest monsoon revived at ~10 ka, peaking in the interval 6.54 ka. Carbon
dating shows that the Lunkaran Lake in western Rajasthan (south of the Kashmir
Himalaya) was brimming with water from 6300 years B.P. to 4800 years B.P. (Enzel et
al., 1999). Then the wet climate gave way to severe aridity in the period 42 ka all over
the Himalaya province. The climate changes are testified to by the spores and pollens
entombed in the sediments of the neotectonically formed lakes (Dodia et al., 1984; Fu
Bao and Fan, 1987; Bhattacharya, 1989; Gasse et al., 1996; Kotlia et al., 1997; Xue et al.,
1998).
XIV
1
Ongoing trends
Continuing uplift
A large number of faults of the Himalayan province, including most of the boundary
thrusts of regional dimension are active to very active (Figure 13), as evident from
dislocation and deformation of the Pleistocene and Holocene landforms and deposits,
and discernible modification of the landscape (Valdiya, 1976, 1981, 1988, 1992, 1993;
Valdiya et al., 1996). The uplift has been episodic in the past.
Re-levelling by Survey of India demonstrated that the Siwalik terrane in the
Dehradun Valley in the central sector is rising at a rate of 0.81.0 mm year1 (Rajal et al.,
1986). The uplift rate in the Nepalese Siwalik is almost the same. The Lesser Himalayan
terrane registered an uplift rate of 5 mm year1 in the period 19601972 in the Kumaun
sector (Rajal et al., 1986), and of 3 mm year1 in the period 19771990 (Jackson and
Bilham, 1994) in the Nepalese sector (Figure 14). The Himadri terrane is rising at the
much faster rate of 7 2 mm year1 in north-central Nepal (Jackson and Bilham, 1994),
as a spirit-level survey across the mountains showed (Figure 14). Fission-track dating of
sphene, zircon and apatite in the granites indicates that the Nanga Parbat-Haramosh
massif in NW Kashmir has risen at the rate of 9 mm year1 in the last 0.5Ma period
(Zeitler et al., 1989).
2
Denudation rate
The very fast uplift rate in the northwestern part of the Himalaya is manifest in the
rapid rate of erosion: 212 mm year1 determined on the basis of different bedrock
uplift and incision made by the Sindhu River (Burbank et al., 1996). Using in situ
cosmogenic Be10 and Al26 exposure age of the straths abandoned by the Sindhu River,
Leland et al. (1998) showed that the earlier rate of 16 m ka1 increased to 912 m ka1
388
Figure 13 Two illustrative instances of neotectonic movements along

boundary thrusts in the Lesser Kumaun Himalaya: (a) reactivation of
the South Almora Thrust near Kakrighat in the Kosi Valley in the
interior Kumaun caused the uplift by 10 m of the northern part of the
Pleistocene fluvial terrace (with trees). (b) Movements along the Main
Boundary Thrust (MBT) have brought older Proterozoic quartzite
upon the subrecent fluvial gravel (which rests on the Lower Siwalik) at
Shim in the Ladhiya valley, a tributary of the Kali River that
demarcates the IndiaNepal border
389
Velocity
Average Uplift Rate (mm years1)
K.S. Valdiya
Figure 14 Spirit-level geodetic survey carried out in the period

19771990 showed uplift at varying rate of the three terranes in central
Nepal. The Mahabharat Range forms the outer Lesser Himalaya, and
the Sheopuri Range represents the Himadri (Great Himalaya)
Source: Jackson and Bilham (1994)
after 7 ka. Upstream in Ladakh in the same Sindhu Valley, the rate of bedrock cutting
decreased from 2 mm year to 0.30.4 mm year1 after 15 ka B.P. (Sharma et al., 1998).
On the basis of generation of detritus that accumulated in river valleys, the rate of
erosion in south-central Kumaun has been estimated at 1.73 mm year1 (Bartarya and
Valdiya, 1989) and in eastern Nepal at 1.38 mm year1 (Carson, 1985). Locally the rate
of denudation in central Nepal is as high as 6 mm year1 (Arita and Ganzawa, 1997).
3
Strain build-up and seismicity
The pattern of epicentral distribution (Figure 15) indicates that the Himalayan
earthquakes are related to movements on the MBT to its subsurface northward
extension and to the multiplicity of tear faults that cut the Himalaya transversely. Four
times in the last 100 years the Himalayan arc has been ruptured by earthquakes of
magnitude greater than 8.0 Kangra (M 8.4) in 1904, south-central Nepal (M 8.1) in
1934, southern Meghalaya (M 8.7) in 1897, and northeastern Arunachal (M 8.7) in 1950.
There is an approximately 50-km-wide belt of predominant moderate earthquakes (M
56) located in the inner Lesser Himalaya, just south of the MCT (Gaur, 1993). The
depths of hypocentres are quite shallow commonly 2520 km. The hypocentres define
a shallow-dipping detachment plane that separates the subducting basement from the
overlying sedimentary wedge (Seeber and Armbruster, 1981). Intense microseismicity
also tends to be clustered in this belt, just in front of the Himadri. Thus, the 1020-kmdeep seismicity belt correlates with a zone of localized uplift (also evident from the
geodetic data) and is related to mid-crustal ramp (Pandey et al., 1995).
390
K.S. Valdiya
391
There are several pockets of high seismicity (going by the frequency of occurrence) in
regions cut by tear faults, which commonly constitute conjugate pairs (Valdiya, 1976,
1981). Fault-plane solutions demonstrate that most of the major earthquakes result from
thrust movements, largely in the proximity of the MCT and MBT. Some of the events
were related to strike-slip displacement on NS trending faults as clearly discernible in
the eastern Himalaya, and the others to normal faulting.
However, large parts of the active MBT have remained locked or stuck for several
hundred years. No great earthquake has occurred within the more than 1000-km-long
central sector since the Kathmandu earthquake of 1255 A.D. The northward movement
or push of the Indian plate continues at the rate of 35.4 4.1 mm year1 north and 35.7
5.8 mm year1 east as shown by GPS in Nepal (Freymueller et al., 1996). This
movement is being converted into elastic strain and stored progressively in the zones
of active faults, particularly the MBT (Valdiya, 1992). Despite continued strain buildup,
the segment between the Satluj and Kosi rivers has so far not been ruptured by great
earthquakes of M 8.0. An event of magnitude 8 or above could sufficiently release the
enormous strain energy that has accumulated in the last few hundred years. The
devastating earthquake of central Nepal of 1833 was of the magnitude M >7.5<7.9 and
occurred close to the rupture of the 1934 earthquake of M 8.1 (Bilham, 1995). Practically
the same seismotectonic situation obtains in the Garhwal segment (Chander and
Gahalaut, 1994) characterized by very active faults (Valdiya, 1992). A considerable part
of the estimated convergence is causing accumulation of recoverable elastic strain in the
upper crust. Significantly, minor or moderate earthquakes are not occurring regularly
or periodically, as one would expect in this extraordinarily stressed belt.
The amount of creep recorded in the Nepal sector is insignificant almost negligible
(Bilham, 1995). Therefore, aseismic accommodation of the convergence between Nepal
and the Indian Shield can be safely ruled out. From these facts it is obvious that the
sector between the rivers Satluj and Kosi is a seismic gap where movements on the
MBT have stuck (Gaur, 1993), and is therefore the belt of likely great earthquakes in the
future.
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