Share this
Uttrakhand: Scientists have discovered an unusual event in the Himalayan glaciers for the first time, as climate change accelerates the melting of glaciers around the world. Climate change and geological disturbances are being blamed for the dramatic change in its main flow, according to scientists.
Researchers in Uttarakhand’s Pithoragarh region were examining an unnamed glacier in the upper Kali Ganga valley when they found that the glacier had rapidly shifted its regular route due to the combined influence of climate and tectonics. The atypical behavior of the glacier implies that, in addition to climate, tectonics plays a significant influence in glacial catchments, according to researchers.
The glacier’s movement has changed, confirming the findings of the February 7 disaster in Chamoli’s hilly terrain, which killed over 200 people. According to scientists, the disaster began on top of the six-kilometer-high Ronti peak, where a vast quantity of ice and rock loosened from the slopes, producing a massive landslide that turned into mud and debris flow and destroyed everything in its path.
A tremendous air blow caused by the debris flow leveled roughly 20 hectares of forest. Weathering, percolation of meltwater in joints, crevasses, freezing and thawing, snowfall, overloading, and gradually operating tectonic forces caused the rock mass on which the glacier was sitting to become increasingly fragile, eventually leading to mechanical disintegration and separation from the source rock.
The new findings imply that the Himalayas are a dynamic and very vulnerable mountain range, with tectonics and climate playing crucial roles. The new study was published in the ‘Geoscience Journal’ by a team of scientists from the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (WIHG) in Dehradun.
Scientists stated that a five-kilometer-long unnamed glacier in Kuthi Yankti valley (a tributary of the Kali river) rapidly altered direction, covering a four-square-kilometer region. As a result of tectonic forces, the northeast flowing glacier has been shortened and forced to move southeast, eventually merging with the adjacent Sumzurkchanki glacier.
The study will help in understanding the glacial-tectonic interaction and provides key information for future studies,” the paper said.
Researchers used satellite images, toposheets, and Google Earth images to determine whether the glacier had been impacted by an active fault and climate change. An active fault produced a fault scarp that measures about 250 m in height, has a northerly dip, and is 6.2 kilometers long, with an NW-SE trend.
“It is one of the unique behaviors of the glacier, and no such observation has so far been reported on this type of glacier kinematics. The study indicates that climate is not the only factor that triggers disasters in the Himalayas, which is an active mountain range, but tectonics also plays an important role in glacial catchments,” the Ministry of Science & Technology said in a release.