Abstract As a latest Pleistocene repository of Indus River sand at the entry point to the Himalayan foreland basin, the Thal dune field in northern Pakistan stores crucial information that can be used to reconstruct the erosional evolution of the Himalayan-Karakorum orogen and the changes in the foreland-basin landscape that took place between the Last Glacial Maximum and the early Holocene. This comprehensive provenance study of Thal Desert sand integrates previously existing petrographic, heavy-mineral, mineral-chemical, isotopic, and geochronological databases with original bulk-sediment geochemistry, zircon-age, and Nd-isotope data. Dune sand is low in quartz and rich in feldspars, volcanic, metavolcanic and metabasite grains, contains a very rich transparent heavy-mineral suite including hypersthene and common zircon grains dated as Late Cretaceous to early Paleogene, and is characterized by high Mg, Sc, V, Co, Ni, Cu concentrations and by eNd values as high as −3.5. Together, these data indicate that ~40% of Thal dune sand was supplied by erosion of the Kohistan arc, a proportion that far exceeds the one assessed for modern Upper Indus sand. Greater detrital supply from the Kohistan arc indicates notably different conditions of sediment generation, during a period in which the sediment-transport capacity of the Upper Indus in the dry lowlands was reduced and volumes of sand were extensively reworked by wind and accumulated in dune fields across the foreland basin. In the early Holocene, the renewed strength of the South Asian monsoon and consequently markedly increased water and sediment discharge led to incision of the Thal and Thar dune fields by the Indus River and its Punjab tributaries draining the Himalayan front directly hit by heavy monsoonal rains.

中文翻译：

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Thal沙漠沙的来源：最近第四纪气候变化驱动的喜马拉雅西部构造带的集中侵蚀和前陆盆地沉积

摘要 巴基斯坦北部的塔尔沙丘是喜马拉雅前陆盆地入口处最新世更新世的印度河砂库，储存着重要的信息，可用于重建喜马拉雅-喀喇昆仑造山带的侵蚀演化和造山带的变化。发生在末次盛冰期和全新世早期之间的前陆盆地景观。这项对塔尔沙漠沙子的综合物源研究将先前存在的岩石学、重矿物、矿物化学、同位素和地质年代学数据库与原始大块沉积物地球化学、锆石年龄和 Nd 同位素数据相结合。沙丘砂中的石英含量低，富含长石、火山、变火山和变玄武岩颗粒，包含非常丰富的透明重矿物套件，包括超辉石和常见的锆石颗粒，年代为晚白垩世至早古近纪，其特征是高 Mg、Sc、V、Co、Ni、Cu 浓度和高达 -3.5 的 eNd 值。总之，这些数据表明，约 40% 的塔尔沙丘沙是由科希斯坦弧的侵蚀提供的，这一比例远远超过现代上印度河沙的评估比例。来自科希斯坦弧的更多碎屑供应表明沉积物产生的条件明显不同，在此期间，干旱低地印度河上游的沉积物运输能力降低，大量沙子被风重新加工并堆积在整个沙丘中。前陆盆地。在全新世早期，