The Plio-Pleistocene geologic and climatic record of the Kashmir valley, India: a review and new data

Abstract

The Kashmir valley, located in the northwestern Himalayas, provides an intermontane valley fill comprising unconsolidated fluvio-lacustrine sediments of more than a km thickness, datable at I 4 myr. These sediments have been investigated for the last 7 years under an interdisciplinary multi-agency project using a variety of proxy climatic data techniques and other analyses to decipher climatic change. As a result of this study, a variety of proxy climatic data from a long continental record is available now from northernmost South Asia. In this paper we briefly review the lithostratigraphic and chronologic framework of the sediment profile and proxy climatic data based on flora, fauna, stable isotopes, pedology, mineral magnetics and sedimentology. Lastly, the climatic events are put in an absolute time-frame for comparison with the global climatic trends. The chronology is based on ¹⁴C, thermoluminescence (TL), palaeomagnetic and fission-track techniques.