Large-scale drainage shifts on the Indo-Gangetic plains: implications for reading mountain belt evolution from the sedimentary record

摘要: Sedimentary records from foreland basins are commonly used to reconstruct the evolution of adjacent mountain belts, however the fidelity of these archives to accurately record long-term mountain belt evolution is not fully understood. Here we examine the issue of foreland basin drainage systems and sediment routing. How might changes in such drainage systems affect how we read the sedimentary record? We document late Quaternary palaeo-river channel changes in the Indo-Gangetic basin of western India. Using a combination of satellite remote sensing, subsurface geophysical analysis and detailed sediment coring, we analyse the large-scale planform geometry, and detailed sedimentary and stratigraphic nature of a major palaeochannel/valley fill in the shallow subsurface. This channel complex forms a very significant sediment body recording aggradation of multiple channel fills. Satellite remote sensing …