These datasets were used to evaluate the main controls on last ~6 million years erosion rate variability of the northwestern Himalaya. The Earth’s climate has been cooling during the last ~15 million years and started fluctuating between cold and warm periods since ~2-3 million years ago. Many researchers think that these long-term climatic changes were accompanied by changes in continental erosion. However, quantifying erosion rates in the geological past is challenging, and previous studies reached contrasting conclusions. In this study, we quantified erosion rates in the north-western Indian Himalaya over the past 6 million years by measuring in situ-produced cosmogenic 10Be in exhumed older foreland basin sediments. The 10Be is produced by cosmic rays in minerals at the Earth's surface, and its abundance indicates erosion rates. Our reconstructed erosion rates show a quasi-cyclic pattern with a periodicity of ~1 million year and a gradual increase towards the present. We suggest that both patterns—cyclicity and gradual increase—are unrelated to climatic changes. Instead, we propose that the growth of the Himalaya by repeatedly scraping off rocks from the Indian plate (basal accretion), resulted in changes of its topography that were accompanied by changes in erosion rates. In this scenario, basal accretion episodically changes rock-uplift patterns, which brings landscapes out of equilibrium and results in quasi-cyclic variations in erosion rates. We used numerical landscape evolution simulations to demonstrate that this hypothesis is physically plausible.
Datasets provided here includes summary of the location, depositional age, and stratigraphic position of 41 Siwalik sandstone samples collected from the Haripur section in Himachal Pradesh, India (Dataset S1); 10Be analysis results of Siwalik samples (2021-006_Mandal-et-al_Dataset-S1); sample location and 10Be analysis results of modern river sands from the Yamuna River and its tributaries near the Dehradun Basin (2021-006_Mandal-et-al_Dataset-S2); input parameters for the calculation of paleoerosion rates (2021-006_Mandal-et-al_Dataset-S3); and reconstructed 10Be paleoconcentrations and paleoerosion rates (Dataset S4). Moreover, the data include a compilation of published magnetostratigraphy-derived sediment accumulation rates in the late Cenozoic Himalayan foreland basin (2021-006_Mandal-et-al_Dataset-S5). We also include a movie (2021-006_Mandal-et-al_Movie-S1) that is a complete numerical landscape evolution model run with four consecutive accretion cycles of equal magnitude.
For more information (for e.g., sampling method, analytical procedure, and data processing) please refer to the associated data description file and the main article (Mandal et al., 2021).
Here we provide in situ 10Be data, meteoric 10Be data, X-Ray fluorescence data, infiltration rate field date, chemical extraction data, a summary of grain size data, all grain size data (Table S7), mineral point counting data, XRD data, soil grain size data, and data from laboratory measurements of hydrological parameters. Field work in Santa Gracia was conducted in February of the years 2019 and 2020 and laboratory work was conducted between 2019 and 2023. This data publication accompanies our study (Lodes et al., 2024), in which we investigate whether lithology controls drainage density in Santa Gracia, a semi-arid field site in Central Chile. In the study, we compare the density of drainages in two distinct, neighbouring landscapes underlain by a monzogranite and two diorite plutons (which we refer to as the “inner diorite” and the “outer diorite”). We collected multiple datasets to understand the underlying mechanisms behind the drainage density differences. The data was collected as part of the German Science Foundation (DFG) priority research program SPP-1803 “EarthShape: Earth Surface Shaping by Biota” (grant SCHE 1676/4-1 and -2 to D. S.; funding of P. G. through grant BE 1780/53-1 and -2).
This seismic crosshole dataset was acquired in the context of the DOVE project (Drilling Overdeep-ened Alpine Valleys) at ICDP site 5068_1 (Tannwald Basin) to image the glacial sediments at sub-meter scale. It consists of the field data with geographical coordinates.
The project aims to investigate the landscape evolution in the Alpine region by drilling overdeep-ened valleys and analyzing the cores (DOVE-Phase 1 Scientific Team, Schaller et al., 2023, Schuster et al., 2024). At site 5068_1 (Tannwald Basin), three boreholes were drilled to a depth of about 160 m depth, reaching the bedrock. Boreholes 5068_1_A and 5068_1_B were flush drilling and bore-hole 5068_1_C was cored. In 2022, the boreholes were used to perform high-resolution crosshole seismic measurements in order to image the glacial sediments at sub-meter scale. This dataset con-sists of the seismic field data with geographical coordinates and is subdivided by
(1) the used source and receiver borehole equipment (P: sparker and 24-station hydrophone string, SV: vertically polarizing shear wave source and three-component geophone string with eight geophones, SH: horizontally polarizing shear wave source and three-component geophone string with eight geophones),
(2) the respective borehole plane (BA, BC, and AC), and
(3) the acquisition geometry (STRING, CIRCLE, LINE_BA, LINE_BC, LINE_AC).
The surface seismic data (CIRCLE, LINE_BA, LINE_BC, LINE_AC) was recorded by three-component geophones. The seismic data is provided in SEGY Rev. 1.0 format together with geometry files in csv-format.
As reverse weathering has been shown to impact long-term changes in atmospheric CO2 levels, it is crucial to develop quantitative tools to reconstruct marine authigenic clay formation. We explored the potential of the beryllium (Be) isotope ratio (10Be/9Be) recorded in marine clay-sized sediment to track neoformation of authigenic clays. The power of such proxy relies on the orders-of-magnitude difference in 10Be/9Be ratios between continental Be and Be dissolved in seawater. On riverine and marine sediments collected along a Chilean margin transect we chemically extracted reactive phases and separated the clay-sized sediment fraction. We compare the riverine and marine 10Be/9Be ratio of this fraction. Moreover, we compare the elemental and mineralogical composition and the Nd and Sr-isotopic composition of these samples. 10Be/9Be ratios increase four-fold from riverine to marine sediment. We attribute this increase to the incorporation of Be high in 10Be/9Be from dissolved biogenic opal, which also serves as a Si-source for the precipitation of marine authigenic clays. 10Be/9Be ratios thus sensitively track reverse-weathering reactions forming marine authigenic clays.