title: Repeated catastrophic valley infill following medieval earthquakes in the Nepal Himalaya.
abstract: Geomorphic footprints of past large Himalayan earthquakes are elusive, although they are urgently needed for gauging and predicting recovery times of seismically perturbed mountain landscapes. We present evidence of catastrophic valley infill following at least three medieval earthquakes in the Nepal Himalaya. Radiocarbon dates from peat beds, plant macrofossils, and humic silts in fine-grained tributary sediments near Pokhara, Nepal's second-largest city, match the timing of nearby M > 8 earthquakes in ~1100, 1255, and 1344 C.E. The upstream dip of tributary valley fills and x-ray fluorescence spectrometry of their provenance rule out local sources. Instead, geomorphic and sedimentary evidence is consistent with catastrophic fluvial aggradation and debris flows that had plugged several tributaries with tens of meters of calcareous sediment from a Higher Himalayan source >60 kilometers away.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany. w.schwanghart@geo.uni-potsdam.de.
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Schwanghart
authors.affiliation: Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bernhardt
authors.affiliation: Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
authors.forename: Amelie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Stolle
authors.affiliation: Institute of Geographical Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Philipp
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hoelzmann
authors.affiliation: Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal.
authors.forename: Basanta R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Adhikari
authors.affiliation: Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam, German Centre for Geosciences GFZ, Germany.
authors.forename: Christoff
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Andermann
authors.affiliation: Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tofelde
authors.affiliation: Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology, Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Silke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Merchel
authors.affiliation: Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Helmholtz Institute Freiberg for Resource Technology, Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Georg
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rugel
authors.affiliation: CNRS UMR 8586 Prodig, Département de Géographie, Université Paris-Diderot-SPC, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Monique
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fort
authors.affiliation: Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
authors.forename: Oliver
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Korup
mesh_terms: D002947:Cities; D004190:Disasters / Q000266:history*; D055866:Earthquakes / Q000266:history* / Q000401:mortality; D005580:Fossils; D019015:Geologic Sediments / Q000737:chemistry; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D009390:Nepal; D010944:Plants / Q000737:chemistry; D055110:Radiometric Dating; D045483:Rivers; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry; D013052:Spectrometry, X-Ray Emission
chemical_list: D012987:Soil