Quaternary lacustrine deposits in a high-energy semi-arid mountain environment,Karakoram Mountains,northern Pakistan

Impressive Quaternary lacustrine deposits are present as terrace remnants throughout the Karakoram Mountains, northern Pakistan. They are mainly the result of damming of drainage systems during glacial advances or by catastrophic mass movement deposits. The longevity of most lakes is relatively short, in the order of years to tens of years, but sedimentation rates are extremely high as a consequence of the high sediment loads within the rivers. This results in deposits that frequently exceed 10 m in thickness. The sediments comprise dominantly planar bedded, massive and, less commonly, planar laminated, silts, comprising detrital quartz, feldspar, mica, calcite, chlorite and illite. A facies model for lacustrine sedimentation in a high-energy semi-arid high mountain region is presented, using case studies from a glacially dammed palaeolake (Glacial Lake Gilgit) and a debris-flow dammed palaeolake (Lake Serat). The rapid deposition and absence of organic material restricts the usefulness of these lacustrine sediments as proxies for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction, but they are helpful in reconstructing the former extent of glaciers and illustrating the importance of high-magnitude–low-frequency events, such as landsliding, as formative processes contributing to the evolution of the Karakoram landscape.