Spanish 
Chinese 
Russian 
German 
French 
Japanese 
Portuguese 
Hindi Research Article
Stalagmite Inferred High Resolution Climatic Changes through Pleistocene-Holocene Transition in Northwest Indian Himalaya
| Bahadur Singh Kotlia1*, Anoop Kumar Singh1, Jaishri Sanwal2, Waseem Raza3, Syed Masood Ahmad3, Lalit Mohan Joshi1, Manisha Sirohi1, Arun Kumar Sharma1 and Netramani Sagar3 | |
| 1Centre of Advanced Study in Geology, Kumaun University, Nainital 263 002, India | |
| 2Geodynamics Unit, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bangalore, 560 064, India | |
| 3CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute, Uppal road, Hyderabad, 500 007, India | |
| *Corresponding Author : | Kotlia BS Centre of Advanced Study in Geology Kumaun University, India Tel: 091-9411196744 Fax: +91 5942 239314 E-mail: bahadur.kotlia@gmail.com |
| Received: February 15, 2016; Accepted: February 29, 2016; Published: March 05, 2016 | |
| Citation: Kotlia BS, Singh AK, Sanwal J, Raza W, Ahmad SM, et al. (2016) Stalagmite Inferred High Resolution Climatic Changes through Pleistocene-Holocene Transition in Northwest Indian Himalaya. J Earth Sci Clim Change. 7:338. doi:10.4172/2157-7617.1000338 | |
| Copyright: © 2016 Kotlia BS, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. | |
Abstract
Investigated for d18O and d13C isotopes, mineralogy and growth rate, a 20 cm long and 230Th-dated calcite stalagmite from Kalakot (Jammu and Kashmir Himalaya), has recorded high resolution precipitation variability during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. At present, the study area is influenced by both the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) and Westerlies. The StalAge model indicates that the stalagmite grew between 16.3 ka to 9.5 ka BP under the ideal isotopic equilibrium conditions as revealed by the Hendy test results. The d18O and d13C values range from -5.41 to -8.82% and -7.09 to -10.84% respectively. Although the U/Th chronology is poor due to low Uranium content in the samples resulting in relatively large errors, the first stalagmite inferred precipitation variability reconstructed from NW Indian Himalaya makes this study significant. The near footprints of three global events, e.g., Older Dryas (OD), Allerod period and Younger Drays (YD) can be noticed at ~14.3-13.9, 13.9-12.7 and 12.7-12.2 ka BP. The precipitation strength was weaker during the OD and YD, but was stronger during the Allerød interstadial. By the termination of YD interval, the climate seems fluctuating in the NW Himalaya. There seems variation in commencement, duration and termination of the above mentioned events in different parts of the globe due to latitude location and response time.
