Evidence of Quaternary break-out floods along the middle Indus Valley and in the Peshawar Basin of northern Pakistan

TL;DRAbstract

Catastrophic flood sediments, consisting of stacked sequences of fining upward sediments (rhythmites) occur throughout the Peshawar Basin of northern Pakistan. The flood sediments are the depositional remnants of large floods, emanating from the Indus River drainage basin, that were temporarily ponded in the Peshawar Basin. The stratigraphic arrangement of rhythmites in the basin shows at least three distinct episodes of deposition, each separated by an unknown quantity of time. Sedimentological characteristics of individual rhythmite strata further suggests that individual rhythmites were likely deposited from separate floods. The apparent periodic nature of rhythmite deposition is characteristic of similar sediments in North America that resulted from the periodic bursting of Pleistocene ice-dams. A comparable mechanism is proposed for the Peshawar Basin rhythmites. Estimated volumes calculated from the maximal distribution of rhythmite deposits in the Peshawar Basin suggest a reserv

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