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Recent uplift of Chomolungma enhanced by river drainage piracy

Nature Geoscience (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

The Himalayas, which host glaciers, modulate the Indian Monsoon and create an arid Tibetan Plateau, play a vital role in distributing freshwater resources to the world’s most populous regions. The Himalayas formed under prolonged crustal thickening and erosion by glaciers and rivers. Chomolungma (8,849 m)—also known as Mount Everest or Sagarmāthā—is higher than surrounding peaks, and GPS measurements suggest a higher uplift rate in recent years than the long-term trend. Here we analyse the potential contribution of a river capture event in the Kosi River drainage basin on the renewed surface uplift of Chomolungma. We numerically reconstruct the capture process using a simple stream power model combined with nonlinear inverse methods constrained by modern river profiles. Our best-fit model suggests the capture event occurred approximately 89 thousand years ago and caused acceleration of downstream incision rates. Flexural models estimate this non-steady erosion triggers isostatic response and surface uplift over a broad geographical area. We suggest that part of Chomolungma’s anomalous elevation (~15–50 m) can be explained as the isostatic response to capture-triggered river incision, highlighting the complex interplay between geological dynamics and the formation of topographic features.

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Fig. 1: Large-scale geomorphology of Chomolungma.
Fig. 2: The Arun River profile shows evidence of transience while east and west rivers are in steady state.
Fig. 3: The recovered river profile for the Kosi River catchment and the estimated model parameters.
Fig. 4: Non-steady erosion occurs where erosion rates are greater than the rock uplift rates and leads to surface uplift.

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Data availability

The DEM data used for topographic analysis and river model can be downloaded via https://search.earthdata.nasa.gov/search?q=NASADEM. All model results data associated with the paper are available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13208960 (ref. 57).

Code availability

The code for simulating river capture process is available at https://github.com/hanxu95/River_Capture_Model.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (number 42488201), Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (number 2019QZKK0204), and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (number 2652023001) grants to C.-S.W. and J.-G.D., the Jiangsu Innovation Support Plan for International Science and Technology Cooperation Program (number BZ2022057) grant to C.-S.W. and NERC (NE/X009408/1) grant to M.F. We also thank A. Carter for insightful, constructive comments on this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth Sciences and Resources, State Key Laboratory of Geological Processes and Mineral Resources, State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, Frontiers Science Center for Deep-time Digital Earth, China University of Geosciences, Beijing, China

    Xu Han, Jin-Gen Dai, Shi-Ying Xu, Bo-Rong Liu & Cheng-Shan Wang

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, London, UK

    Adam G. G. Smith & Matthew Fox

  3. School of Natural Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, London, UK

    Adam G. G. Smith

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Contributions

X.H., J.-G.D. and M.F. conceived the idea. J.-G.D., C.-S.W. and M.F. directed the project. X.H., A.G.G.S. and M.F. constructed the numerical models. X.H., S.-Y.X. and B.-R.L. made the figures. All authors discussed the results and implications. M.F., X.H. and J.-G.D. wrote the original paper, and all authors participated in paper revisions.

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Correspondence to Jin-Gen Dai or Matthew Fox.

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Nature Geoscience thanks Kurt Stuewe and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editors: Alireza Bahadori and Tamara Goldin, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Topographic profile along Himalaya.

a, Topographic map of Tibetan Plateau showing profile location. b and c, The 30-km-wide swath profiles show average (yellow line) and maximum and minimum (blue lines) elevations. The average elevation has been smoothed over a length scale of 30 km to reflect long wavelength topographic variations. These profiles highlight that Chomolungma is the highest point along the arc of the Himalaya and is within a broad extensive area of high peaks. This extensive area is likely controlled by long-term tectonics. The deep Kosi River is also clear on these profiles, highlighting that this is also an iconic feature of the central Himalaya.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Distribution of rivers on the southern slopes of the Himalaya and channel profiles of their trunk rivers.

Distribution of rivers on the southern slopes of the Himalaya (a) and channel profiles of their trunk rivers (b-o). The channel profiles correspond to the trunk in red in panel a. The Kosi River displays a unique convex shape (h), but smaller convexities can be identified in other catchments, hinting that multiple catchments have experienced capture events at different times.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Map of normalized channel steepness (ksn) as a reference for stream power.

The normalized channel steepness is calculated by Topotoolbox 2 with m/n = 0.45. The north-south trending reach of the Arun River shows a higher channel steepness than other tributaries.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Initial steady profile of east and west tributaries and Arun River.

Initial steady profile of east and west tributaries (a) and Arun River (b). The total amount of incision predicted by the model is the difference between the two profiles in panel b and in Fig. 3b. However, this is only the amount of incision for one combination of model parameters and different incision magnitudes are expected as model parameters change during the iterative process. Comparison of the pre-capture (c) and post-capture (d) Kosi drainage networks. Colours of the trunk (Arun River) and east and west tributaries correspond to Fig. 2. No change is simulated in the planform geometry of the tributaries before or after the capture event. In contrast, the Arun River experiences a sudden increase in upstream drainage area due to capture.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Distribution of rock uplift rate in the model.

The rock uplift rate is constrained by previous thermochronological research6.

Extended Data Fig. 6 The histogram of the model-residuals shows that the residuals are centred on zero.

In some places the residuals are large and negative. These large residuals may be the result of drainage divide migration not simulated in our model, glacial erosion, or landslides blocking rivers and preventing incision. Additionally, inconsistencies between the rock uplift rate used in the model and the actual rock uplift rate could result in either higher or lower modelled channel elevations in specific areas. Furthermore, large residuals are permitted due to our use of the L1 norm, that is less sensitive to outliers.

Extended Data Fig. 7 1D marginals of the posterior probability distribution of the model parameters.

a-d, 1D marginals of the posterior probability distribution of area exponent (a), slope exponent (b), capture time (c), and erodibility (d). All parameters have clear peaks in probability, but the capture time and erodibility are both quite asymmetric.

Extended Data Fig. 8 The total non-steady river incision since river capture.

This model prediction is from the best fitting selection of model parameter. Almost 800 m of river incision is predicted through the highest Himalaya.

Extended Data Fig. 9 Distribution characteristics of current isostatic uplift rates.

a-c, Current isostatic uplift rate due to non-steady incision for different elastic thicknesses (Te). d, Isostatic uplift rate profile along section x-x′ in panel a, showing the position of Chomolungma and Makalu.

Extended Data Fig. 10 Distribution characteristics of total isostatic uplift amount.

a-c, Total isostatic uplift amount since river capture due to non-steady incision for different elastic thicknesses (Te). d, Isostatic uplift amount profile along section x-x′ in panel a, showing the position of Chomolungma and Makalu.

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Han, X., Dai, JG., Smith, A.G.G. et al. Recent uplift of Chomolungma enhanced by river drainage piracy. Nat. Geosci. (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01535-w

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