12-14 September, 2011, Lucknow - Earth Science India

National Conference on Science of Climate Change and Earth’s Sustainability: Issues and Challenges ‘A Scientist-People Partnership’
12-14 September, 2011, Lucknow
delta, and marine terraces are evolved by glaciers during glaciations and by mass
movement, fluvial, lake, delta, and sea respectively during deglaciations.
The landforms were analysed on the basis of field documentation of this area. The
terrestrial valley glaciers of this region are characterized by convex wrinkled surface,
crevasses, bergchrunds, supraglacial streams, longitudinal debris strips, lateral
moraines, recessional moraines, hummocky moraines, thrust moraines, convex
longitudinal profile with break in slopes, fractures and joints. The surging of glaciers
modifies the evidences of the preexisting glacier events. Therefore the surging glaciers
provide very little information about the advance and retreat of the glacier and so the
climate change. The moraines and outwash plain deposits are made up of clast to matrix
supported boulders with varying clast, matrix, and gravel size. The matrix supported
facies capped by clast supported facies indicate the increasing energy of the glacial and
so the cold climate. The bimodal palaeocurrent pattern suggests two prominent
directions for the movement of glaciers in the past under direct control of tectonic
activity. The granulometric analysis of the streams indicates that the mean grain size
decreases from origin to the middle reaches of the river whereas it again increases near
its mouth. The percentage of the finer sediments decreases and coarser fragments
increases in the downstream direction. The granulometric parameters which are
contrary to the normal fluvial system are due to the tectonic events.
The present study provides the basic characteristics of the surface processes of
this area and explains that theses environments indicate the control of tectonic activity
in this region and very little about the climate change.
CLIMATIC CHANGES AND ITS IMPACT ON THE
HIMALAYAN GLACIERS
R.K. Chaujar
Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun
It is now a well-established fact that the glaciers are receding by and large
worldwide. Warmer climate in the future may cause increased melting of glaciers which
will lead to a rise in sea level. Changes in climatic trends is clearly reflected in mass and
temperature changes of glaciers and permafrost. The work deals mainly with the
climatic changes and its impact on the Himalayan glaciers based on the study of
landforms formed by various stages of advance and retreat of the Chorabari (in the
Kedarnath Temple area), Dokriani, and Gangotri glaciers, Garhwal Himalaya and Chota
Shigri glacier, H. P., and dating of various cycles of their advance and retreat by
lichenometry. It has been found that Glaciers have advanced and retreated many times
in the past as a part of Natural Cycles of Warming and cooling, with absolutely no
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