QC Vol(2) No(1) April-2020

PhD Theses

Late Quaternary oceanographic and cli- of geophysical surveys, drilling and coring, and matic reconstructions based on foramini- optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating fera and sediment geochemical signatures of buried sands to establish the subsurface ex- from the northeastern Arabian Sea istence, chronostratigraphic framework and de- positional environments during the Late Quater- Submitted by: Syed Azharuddin nary period in NW India. Supervisor (s): Dr Pawan Govil, BSIP & Prof A. Dendroclimatology of the Liddar Valley D. Singh, Dept. of Geology, BHU and adjoining areas of the Kashmir Hi- malaya This research aims to understand the drivers of the paleoclimatic and paleoceanographic vari- Submitted by: Uttam Pandey ability in the northeastern Arabian Sea, from Supervisor (s): Prof. Munendra Singh, Dept. of where very few high-resolution records exist. The Geology, U.of Lucknow & Dr. Santosh K. Shah, study was conducted on two sediment gravity BSIP cores from offshore Saurashtra. The author ob- serves progressive strengthening of southwest This thesis develops tree-rings network of twenty monsoon throughout the Holocene and records chronologies from 1753 tree cores of four taxa short term centennial scale events. Abrupt cold for Liddar valley and adjoining areas in the events including YD, 8.2 ka and 4 ka events Himalaya to establish self-calibrated Palmer (corresponding to the weakened monsoons), a Drought Severity Index (scPDSI), winter temper- warm event of preboreal (corresponding to the ature and past river flow of the Shingo River of strengthened monsoons) and a new cold event the Indus Basin. The work constructs the scPDSI centering around 10.1 ka are reported. Fur- of summer, based on tree-ring chronologies of ther, spectral analyses of the high-resolution 18 A. pindrow, C. deodara and P. smithiana which δ OG.ruber time series records from the investi- demonstrates the reconstructions for years 1581- ∼ gated cores reveal the cyclicity of 256 years in 2012 CE are consistent with wet-dry episodes of the monsoons, which corresponds to Holocene regional and adjoining regions of Western Hi- deVries solar cycle. Two more periodicities of malaya, Karakorum and Tibetan Plateau, reflect- ∼296 years and ∼1609 years have also been 18 ing increase in pluvial condition since the 1970s recorded from the δ OG.ruber time series, which to present. Another reconstruction of the winter match with the 282 years cyclic event in the North temperature, based on P. wallichiana for 1855- Atlantic and the 1500 500 years Bond cycle re- 2012 CE, shows recent abrupt warming trends spectively. after the 1970s and reflected regional-scale temperature variability. Lastly, based on tree-ring Drainage reorganization and subsurface chronology of A. pindrow from Sindh valley, a stratigraphy of the paleo-Yamuna River in first of its kind river flow reconstruction for pe- Haryana plain, NW India and its linkage to riod (1760-2002 CE) of the Shingo River of Indus Harappan Civilization Basin is presented. Submitted by: Imran Khan Supervisor (s): Prof. Rajiv Sinha, IIT Kanpur The present doctoral thesis focuses on the east- ern tributary of the ancient Sarasvati River, the paleo-Yamuna, and uses an integrated approach

Page 5 Vol. 2 No. 1 April 2020 [email protected] port of the Bay of Bengal moisture to parts of Indian mainland during the summer monsoon, attributable to monsoon intra-seasonal oscilla- tions. The Indian summer monsoon (ISM) for period 1.7-3.2 ka is also studied using geochemical analyses of stalagmite from peninsular In- dia (Kadapa Cave), producing the highest ever ∼1 year resolution dataset. A declining trend is ob- served in the ISM, that identifies an associated abrupt event at ∼2.8 ka. A further comparison with Chinese records and a synthesis of 26 stud- Isotopic studies of rainfall and its recon- ies from India. This results suggest synchronous struction using speleothems from the In- variations of the Indian and the East Asian Mon- dian subcontinent soon systems and elucidate influences of various major climatic events, such as LIA, MWP, and Submitted by: Nitesh Sinha RWP. Supervisor (s): Dr S. Chakraborty, IITM, Pune This thesis presents an extensive dataset of modern daily rainfall isotopic composition from sites in the Indian subcontinent and Bay of Bengal during 2012 - 2017 to analyse changes in rainfall amount and corresponding isotopic signatures. The Port Blair rainwater δ18O maintains a temporally dependent correlation with the aver- age rain variation over the Core Monsoon Zone (CMZ), though the rainfall over these two regions shoes none. Consequently, the correlation between rainfall over the CMZ and δ18O of Port Blair rain provides evidence of the trans-

Workshops/Conferences Organized: concept, applications and operation of modern instru- mental methods for chemical analysis applied in the field of Earth & Environmental Sciences. Equal em- Advanced Training Program on Analytical Geochem- phasis was given on theoretical aspects and practical istry (A CSIR-Integrated Skill Initiative) sessions for high-quality data processing through various software applications. About 60 eminent scien- The 3rd advanced training program on “Analytical tists, research scholars, and technical personnel from Geochemistry (A CSIR- Integrated Skill Initiative)” different parts of the country participated in the pro- was organized at the CSIR- National Geophysical gram. Hands-on training sessions were provided on Research Institute (CSIR-NGRI), Hyderabad, during different types of sample preparation, sample reduc- February 10-19, 2020. The main theme of the work- tion, thin sectioning, and mineral separation tech- shop was to develop skilled human resources in the niques, along with a strong emphasis on contamina- field of Analytical Geochemistry. The ten-day work- tion control at various stages of the analytical proce- shop was designed and conducted to introduce the

Page 6 Vol. 2 No. 1 April 2020 [email protected] dure. Quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC) Argha Banerjee, IISER Pune; Prof. A K Singhvi, PRL, methods, which are the most important aspect used in Ahmedabad; Prof. R. N. Singh and Prof. Vikrant the field of analytical geochemistry, were also taken Jain, IITGN; Prof. S. K Tandon, IISER Bhopal). The into consideration and discussed. The spectroscopic workshop also befitted by evening talks delivered by technique, such as X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) and In- young faculties and researchers at IITGN to high- ductively Coupled Plasma- Mass Spectrometry (ICP- light the emerging research areas in geomorphology. MS) for the major, trace and REE elements, mineral The workshop encouraged the young generation of re- characterization by XRD, SEM-EDS, EPMA and LA- searchers to pose research questions, pursue methods HR-ICP-MS and high precision mineral geochronol- of quantitative analysis and evolve important multi- ogy (Pb-Pb Baddeleyite) by using TE-TIMS were also disciplinary paradigm of geomorphology. addressed. Prof. Vikrant Jain, IIT-Gandhinagar Hidayatullah Khan, BSIP Upcoming Events: National Workshop on Quantitative Geomorphology (7-21 Feb, 2020) Number of Scientific meetings have been cancelled/ postponed or rescheduled due to the onset of NOVEL Quantitative analysis in geomorphology (or Earth CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19). The present status of Surface Processes) has recently emerged as an im- the meeting is indicated as per available details on portant discipline of geosciences due to its applica- their website (links given in blue are click-able in pdf). tions in sustainable management of natural resources and effective management of natural hazards. Fu- ture of various landforms namely rivers, wetlands, Meetings Postponed glaciers, hillslopes, desert, coastal region in the chal- lenging Anthropocene time will depend on the in- 36th International Geological Congress; New Delhi, depth quantitative process understanding with the India. Postponed to 9-14 November 2020. Contact: appreciation of nonlinear dynamics of present-day [email protected] Web: 36igc geomorphic processes(s). The Earth Sciences Disci- The PAGES Carbon in Peat on EArth through Time pline at the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhi- (C-PEAT) workshop ”Tropical peatland processes and nagar (IITGN) organized ‘Quantitative Geomorphol- ecosystem services” C: [email protected] W: ogy’workshop that focus upon a wider application of pastglobalchanges peat-carbon state-of-art quantitative techniques in geoscientific studies. The workshop was funded by Oil India Lim- TRACE 2020 – Tree Rings in Archaeology, ited and was supported by the Indian National Sci- Climatology and Ecology; Lund, Sweden C: ence Academy (INSA). It was coordinated by Profes- [email protected] W: trace2020 sor Vikrant Jain, Earth Sciences, IITGN. The main ob- 3rd International Workshop on Stratospheric Sulfur jective of the workshop was to expose the young re- and its Role in Climate (SSiRC); University of Leeds, searchers with modern quantitative approaches and UK C: [email protected] W: SSiRC methods, which could be applied by them in their research problems. A total of 30 participants from 5th International Meeting of Early-stage Researchers 60 applicants were selected, which included senior in Palaeontology (IMERP); Naujoji Akmenė, Lithua- PhD students, postdoc fellows and Assistant Profes- nia. C: [email protected] W: imerp2020 sors from 18 different institutions across India. The 35th International Meeting of Sedimentology; participants benefitted from the valuable lectures and Prague, Czech Republic. C: [email protected] hands-on exercises conducted by international (Prof. W: iasprague2020 Jerome Lave, CNRS France; Prof. Bodo Bookha- gen, Potsdam University) and Indian resource per- PalEOclimate and the PeopLing of the Earth (PEO- sons (Prof B S Daya Sagar, ISI, Bengaluru; Prof. PLE 3000) workshop ”Understanding long-term

Page 7 Vol. 2 No. 1 April 2020 [email protected] human-environment feedback loops through the in- Goldschmidt 2020 Conference; Hawaii Convention tegration of archeology, paleoclimate and ecological Center and University of Hawaii, Hawaii, USA 21- models”; Arica, Chile. Tentatively postponed to 31 Au- 26th June 2020. W: goldschmidt2020 gust to 5 September 2020. C: [email protected] Sustainability Research and Innovation Congress 2nd International PalaeoArc Conference on ”Pro- (SRI2020); Brisbane, Australia 14-17 June 2020. C: cesses and Palaeo-environmental changes in the Arc- [email protected] W: sri2020 tic: from past to present”; Pisa, Italy. Post- PAGES-supported 9th International Climate Change: poned to 28 September to 2 October 2020. C: The Karst Record (KR9) Conference; Innsbruck, Aus- [email protected] W: palaeoarc2020 tria 12-15 July 2020. C: [email protected] W: Paleoclimate Modelling Intercomparison Project 2020KR9 (PMIP) 2020 Conference; Postponed to second half of Physics of the Ocean Summer School; Bad Honnef, October 2020. C: [email protected] W: pmip2020 Germany 12-17 July 2020. 14th International Coral Reef Symposium (ICRS Meetings Cancelled 2020); Bremen, Germany 5-10 July 2020.

EGU General Assembly 2020 C: egu2020@coperni Land Use and Ecosystem Change Summer School; cus.org W: egu2020 Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Me- teorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Envi- Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) 17th ronmental Research (IMK-IFU), Campus Garmisch- ANNUAL MEETING C: [email protected] W: Partenkirchen, Germany 19-26 August 2020. W: aogs2020 landchange-school2020 2nd International Conference on Contaminated Sed- PAGES-endorsed 19th International Swiss Climate iments C: [email protected] W: Contami- Summer School; Grindelwald, Switzerland 23-28 Au- nated Sediments2 gust 2020. C: [email protected] W: SCSS19 Joint Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research 26th Annual Meeting of the European Association of (SCAR) 2020 C: [email protected] W: scar- Archaeologists (EAA); Budapest, Hungary 26-30 Au- comnap2020 gust 2020. C: [email protected] W: eaa2020 PAGES-supported Carpathian-Balkan Paleoscience Meetings As per schedule: This may be subject to Workshop 2020 (CBPW2020); Sacel, Maramures change considering the current/future situation. county, Romania 31 August to 4 September 2020. C: [email protected] W: CBPW2020 PalaeoSIG Science Communication and Writing EuroDendro 2020 Conference; Riga, Latvia 31 August Workshop; University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland, to 4 September 2020 C: [email protected] W: UK 13-14 May 2020. C: [email protected] W: eurodendro2020 palaeosig Environment and History: an Introductory Work- Cities on Volcanoes 11 Conference; Herak- shop; Istanbul, Turkey 7-8 September 2020. C: lion, Crete, Greece 23-27 May 2020. C: [email protected] W: environment-and- [email protected] W: volcanoes11 history-workshop Climate Variability Across Scales (CVAS) working 15th International Palynological Congress and group workshop ”Beyond Palaeoclimate Ping Pong: 11th International Organisation of Palaeob- Improving estimates of climate variability by con- otany Conference; Prague, Czech Republic C: sistent data-model comparison”; University of Hei- [email protected] W: prague2020 delberg, Heidelberg, Germany 2-5 June 2020. C: [email protected] W: ping-pong2020 PALeo-constraints on SEA-level rise (PALSEA) work-

Page 8 Vol. 2 No. 1 April 2020 [email protected] shop ”Improving understanding of ice-sheet and Volcanic Impacts on Climate and Society (VICS) solid-Earth processes driving paleo sea-level change”; workshop ”Moving forward by looking back”; Aarhus, Palisades, NY, USA 14-16 September 2020. C: Denmark 30 September to 2 October 2020. C: [email protected] W: palsea2020 [email protected] 25th Society of Africanist Archaeologists (SAfA) Con- LandCover6k 4th General Workshop ”New Land- ference; Oxford, UK 21-24 September 2020. C: Cover and Land-Use Datasets for evaluation and [email protected] W: safa2020 improvement of Anthropogenic Land-Cover Change Quaternary Interglacials (QUIGS) workshop Scenarios”; Philadelphia, PA, USA 9-10 October ”Glacial Terminations: processes and feedbacks”; 2020. C: [email protected], jen- Cassis, France 22-24 September 2020. C: [email protected] W: 4thLandCover6k [email protected] International Partnerships in Ice Core Sciences 3rd International Conference on Polar Climate and (IPICS) 3rd Open Science Conference; Crans- Environmental Change in the Last Millennium; Montana, Switzerland 18-23 October 2020. W: Toruń, Poland 24-26 September 2020. C: polarcli- 3rdIPICS [email protected] W: polarclimate2020 3rd Climate Reconstruction and Impacts from PAGES-INQUA joint ECR workshop: Past Socio- Archives of Societies (CRIAS) workshop, titled ”State Environmental Systems (PASES) for early-career re- of the Art of Historical Climatology in International searchers; La Serena y Coquimbo, Chile from 9-13 Perspective”; Hong Kong 25-26 September 2020. C: November 2020. C: [email protected] [email protected] W: pases2020

Selected Publications: Between December 2019 and March 2020, several in 2017–2019 dammed the proglacial local river, and novel research papers and book chapters incorporat- forming an ice-dammed lake and generating a small ing wide scientific techniques were published in var- glacial lake outburst flood. ious national and international peer-reviewed jour- nals. Some key highlights include: In the Ladakh region, Phartiyal et al. (2020) investigate sediments from a proglacial lake to pro- In the context of the Himalayan and adjacent moun- vide the first high-resolution palaeolimnology record tains, Owen (2020) provides an overview of Qua- from Karakoram Himalayas and demonstrate various ternary Glaciation and its drivers, based on abun- intermittent warm and cold periods during the late dant field studies, remote sensing and geochronolog- Holocene. Shukla et al. (2020) combine mor- ical methods. The author shows that at least nine ma- phological, sedimentological and OSL dating to sug- jor regionally synchronous glacier advances occurred gest the preservation of three glacial advances of de- in the region over the past ∼400 ka. Thakur et creasing magnitude in southern Ladakh attributable al. (2020) illustrate cases of active tectonics of Hi- to the westerlies. Sharma et al. (2019) investi- malayan Frontal Fault Zone in the Sub-Himalaya dur- gate another sedimentary section in the region and ing the late Pleistocene-Holocene. Kumar et al. follow a multi-proxy approach to reconstruct high- (2020) discuss the late Quaternary sedimentation resolution records of monsoonal variability during the history of the Himalaya and its foreland, review the late Holocene. Achyuthan et al. (2020) provide published literature in the context and highlight the an overview of the C/N ratio and organic matter con- research gaps that need to be addressed. Bhambri tents in surface sediments of four Kashmir lakes and et al. (2020) combine satellite imageries to demon- discuss their potential value in palaeoclimatic inter- strate how a surge of Shispare Glacier, Karakoram pretation of fossil sediments in these lake basins to

Page 9 Vol. 2 No. 1 April 2020 [email protected] serve as an analogue with older materials. Shah et al. text of the ISM reconstruction, and discuss its evolu- (2020), based on multi-proxy investigations, present tion during the late Quaternary and associated impli- a comprehensive record of the Holocene climate and cations for palaeoenvironmental and societal changes. hydrographic changes around the Wular Lake, Kash- mir Valley and identify three key phases of wet climate conditions. References

Gupta et al. (2019) present a new high-resolution Achyuthan, H. et al., 2020. Climate, C/N Ratio and oxygen isotope record from the Wah Shikar Cave in Organic Matter Accumulation: An Overview of Exam- northeast India and identify abrupt changes in the ples from Kashmir Himalayan Lakes. In Himalayan ISM strength during the last ∼900 years. In the arid Weather and Climate and their Impact on the Envi- landscape of northwest India, Kar (2020) discusses ronment (pp. 185-203). Springer, Cham. the drivers of aeolian landscape changes in the Thar Desert during the late Quaternary, highlights the is- Ahmad, M.Z. and Singh, P., 2020. Implication of sue of sampling strategies in earlier studies, and com- weathering and mineral sorting on rare earth el- pares the dune accumulation chronologies generated ement geochemistry of Pleistocene–Holocene sedi- using older and modern dating protocols. Shridhar ments from Cauvery delta, south India. Journal of et al. (2020) study a lacustrine sequence at Timbi Earth System Science, 129(1), pp.1-22. in the semi-arid region of western India and based on Bhambri, R. et al., 2020. The hazardous 2017–2019 multi-proxy data discuss high magnitude floods in re- surge and river damming by Shispare Glacier, Karako- sponse to southwest monsoon variability. Along the ram. Scientific Reports, 10(1), pp.1-14. Ganga plains, Khanolkar et al. (2020) synthe- sise chronostratigraphic records of cliff sections and Gupta, A.K. et al., 2019. Abrupt changes in Indian drill cores and the subsurface data of the hydrocarbon summer monsoon strength during the last ∼900 years industry, and discuss the role of the Indian summer and their linkages to socio-economic conditions in the monsoon (ISM) and tectonic processes in shaping late Indian subcontinent. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclima- Quaternary evolution of the landscape. In central In- tology, Palaeoecology, 536, p.109347. dia, Jha et al. (2020) investigate fluvial sequences of the Belan River and based on stable isotopic com- Gupta, A.K. et al., 2020. Evolution and Development position of soil carbonates and n-alkanes of palaeosols of the Indian Monsoon. In Geodynamics of the Indian discuss the Late Quaternary climate, vegetation and Plate (pp. 499-535). Springer, Cham. its implications for prehistoric phases. Jha, D.K. et al., 2020. Multi-proxy evidence of Late Quaternary climate and vegetational history of north- In South India, from Sagileru Valley in Andhra central India: Implication for the Paleolithic to Ne- Pradesh, Krishnan and Achyuthan (2019) inves- olithic phases. Quaternary Science Reviews, 229, tigate biotite flakes from the Young Toba Tuff ash and p.106121. characterise the state and stage of weathering since ash deposition ∼74 ka in the context of dry, semi- Kar, A., 2020, March. Quaternary Aeolian Land- arid to arid climatic conditions. Ahmed and Singh scape Development in Thar Desert and Its Drivers. In (2020) conduct geochemical analyses on two drilled Proceedings of the Indian National Science Academy cores from the Cauvery delta and discuss the impli- (Vol. 86, No. 1, pp. 405-417). cations of weathering and mineral sorting on rare Khanolkar, S. et al., 2020. Late Quaternary Evolution earth element geochemistry during the late Quater- and Morphostratigraphic Development of the Ganga nary. In the context of least explored Andaman Sea, Plains. In Geodynamics of the Indian Plate (pp. 467- Sijinkumar et al. (2020) discuss the late Quater- 497). Springer, Cham. nary chronostratigraphy, carbonate mass accumulation rates and palaeocenography in response to the Krishnan, G. and Achyuthan, H., 2019. Incipient variations in the ISM. Gupta et al. (2020) review Weathering of the ∼74ka Young Toba Tuff (YTT) Bi- an array of terrestrial and marine records in the con- otite Grains, Sagileru Valley, Andhra Pradesh. Jour-

Page 10 Vol. 2 No. 1 April 2020 [email protected] nal of the Geological Society of India, 94(6), pp.573- p.0959683619887426. 578. Shukla, A.D. et al., 2020. Optical chronology and cli- Kumar A. et al., 2020. Late Quaternary sedimen- matic implication of glacial advances from the south- tation history of the Himalaya and its foreland. ern Ladakh Range, NW Himalaya, India. Palaeo- Episodes 43 (1), 498-510 geography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 539, Owen, L.A., 2020. Quaternary Glaciation of the p.109505. Himalaya and Adjacent Mountains. In Himalayan Sijinkumar, A.V. et al., 2020. Late Quaternary Weather and Climate and their Impact on the Envi- Chronostratigraphy, Carbonate Mass Accumulation ronment (pp. 239-260). Springer, Cham. Rates and Palaeoceanography of the Andaman Sea. In Phartiyal, B. et al., 2020. Late-Holocene cli- The Andaman Islands and Adjoining Offshore: Ge- matic record from a glacial lake in Ladakh ology, Tectonics and Palaeoclimate (pp. 289-313). range, Trans-Himalaya, India. The Holocene, Springer, Cham. p.0959683620908660. Sridhar, A. et al. 2020. Lacustrine record of high Shah, R.A. et al., 2020. Holocene palaeoenvironmen- magnitude flood events and climate variability during tal records from the high-altitude Wular Lake, West- mid to late Holocene in the semiarid alluvial plains, ern Himalayas. The Holocene, p.0959683619895592. western India. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, p.109581. Sharma, C.P. et al., 2019. High-resolution climatic (monsoonal) variability reconstructed from Thakur, V.C. et al., 2020. Fault Zone in the Sub- a continuous 2700-year sediment record from Himalaya. Geodynamics of the Indian Plate: Evolu- Northwest Himalaya (Ladakh). The Holocene, tionary Perspectives, p.439.

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