Marine sedimentary sections across the Paleocene/Eocene (P/E) boundary interval are preserved in the Patala Formation (Upper Indus Basin) and Dungan Formation (Lower Indus Basin), Pakistan. The P/E interval of the Patala Formation is composed of limestone and shale inter-beds indicating deposition on a carbonate platform. The analysis of larger foraminifera across the P/E interval from the Patala Formation (Kala Chitta Ranges), allows the recognition of the Larger Foraminiferal Turnover (LFT). The Larger Foraminiferal Turnover (LFT) observed in the Patala Formation is associated with the PETM (Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum) global climatic event and allows the recognition of the P/E boundary in shallow water carbonates of the Indus Basin. This turnover is already reported from other Tethyan sections and from the Salt Range (Upper Indus Basin), Pakistan. The recognition of the LFT allows the inter-basinal and intra-basinal correlation of the P/E interval of the shallow carbonates of the Indus Basin, Pakistan. The available literature on the Paleocene-Eocene Patala and Dungan formations is used to review the planktonic foraminiferal biostratigraphy of the P/E interval. The planktonic foraminiferal zones in the P/E interval of the Indus Basin are identified and reviewed in the light of new international zonations. The planktonic foraminiferal content of the Dungan Formation allows its correlation with the Laki Formation of Rajesthan (India). Four dinoflagellate zones in the P/E interval of the Rakhi Nala section (Lower Indus Basin) are identified and correlated with international and regional zonations. The quantitative analysis of the dinoflagellate cyst assemblages together with geochemical data (i.e., carbon isotopes (organic only), C/N ratio, TOC, carbonate content) is used to reconstruct the palaeoenivronment across the P/E interval. The dinocyst assemblages in general, and the abundance of Apectodinium spp. in particular, indicate the warmer surface water conditions of the global PETM event. The dinocyst assemblages allow the local correlation of the Dungan Formation (part) of the Sulaiman Range with the Patala Formation (part) of the Upper Indus Basin and global correlation of the Zone Pak-DV with the Apectodinium acme Zone of the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The carbon isotopic excursion (CIE) associated with PETM is now globally used to identify the P/E boundary. The CIE in total organic carbon (i.e., δ13CTOC = -28.9‰) and total fine fraction organics (i.e., δ13CFF= 26.4‰) from the Indus Basin is reported for the first time. This CIE record from the Indus Basin is compared with other Tethyan sections from Egypt and Uzbekistan and is also compared with the global sections from USA (Northern hemisphere) and from New Zealand (Southern hemisphere).

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oxford, 1929. / Reprint. Originally published: London : K. Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1934. Includes bibliographical references.

abstract: Understanding the evolution of the Himalayan-Tibetan orogen is important because of its purported effects on global geodynamics, geochemistry and climate. It is surprising that the timing of initiation of this canonical collisional orogen is poorly constrained, with estimates ranging from Late Cretaceous to Early Oligocene. This study focuses on the Ladakh region in the northwestern Indian Himalaya, where early workers suggested that sedimentary deposits of the Indus Basin molasse sequence, located in the suture zone, preserve a record of the early evolution of orogenesis, including initial collision between India and Eurasia. Recent studies have challenged this interpretation, but resolution of the issue has been hampered by poor accessibility, paucity of robust depositional age constraints, and disputed provenance of many units in the succession. To achieve a better understanding of the stratigraphy of the Indus Basin, multispectral remote sensing image analysis resulted in a new geologic map that is consistent with field observations and previously published datasets, but suggests a substantial revision and simplification of the commonly assumed stratigraphic architecture of the basin. This stratigraphic framework guided a series of new provenance studies, wherein detrital U-Pb geochronology, 40Ar/39Ar and (U-Th)/He thermochronology, and trace-element geochemistry not only discount the hypothesis that collision began in the Early Oligocene, but also demonstrate that both Indian and Eurasian detritus arrived in the basin prior to deposition of the last marine limestone, constraining the age of collision to older than Early Eocene. Detrital (U-Th)/He thermochronology further elucidates the thermal history of the basin. Thus, we constrain backthrusting, thought to be an important mechanism by which Miocene convergence was accommodated, to between 11-7 Ma. Finally, an unprecedented conventional (U-Th)/He thermochronologic dataset was generated from a modern river sand to assess steady state assumptions of the source region. Using these data, the question of the minimum number of dates required for robust interpretation was critically evaluated. The application of a newly developed (U-Th)/He UV-laser-microprobe thermochronologic technique confirmed the results of the conventional dataset. This technique improves the practical utility of detrital mineral (U-Th)/He thermochronology, and will facilitate future studies of this type. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Geological Sciences 2011

Quantifying the contribution of glaciers to water resources is particularly important in locations where glaciers may provide a large percentage of total river discharge. In some remote locations, direct field measurements of melt rates are difficult to acquire, so alternate approaches are needed. Positive degree-day modeling (PDD) of glacier melt is a valuable tool to making first order approximations of the volume of melt coming from glaciers. In this study, a PDD-melt model is applied to glaciers in the Indus River watershed located in Afghanistan, China, India, and Pakistan. Here, millions of people rely on the water from the Indus River, which previous work suggests may be heavily dependent on glacier melt from high mountain regions in the northern part of the watershed. In this region, the PDD melt model calculates the range of melt volumes from more than 45,000 km2 of glaciated area. It relies on a limited suite of input variables for glaciers in the region: elevation, temperature, temperature lapse rate, melt factor, and surface area. Three global gridded climate datasets were used to determine the bounds of temperature at each glacier: UEA CRU CL 2.0, UEA CRU TS 2.1, and NCEP/NCAR 40 year reanalysis. The PDD melt model was run using four different melt scenarios: mean, minimum, maximum, and randomized. These scenarios account for differences in melt volume not captured by temperature, and take uncertainties in all input parameters into account to bound the possible melt volume. The spread in total melt volume from the model scenarios ranges between 27 km3 and 439 km3. While the difference in these calculations is large, it is highly likely the real value falls within this range. Importantly, even the smallest model volume output is a significant melt water value. This suggests that even when forcing the absolute smallest volume of melt, the glacier contribution to the Indus watershed is significant. In addition to providing information about melt volume, this model helps to highlight glaciers with the greatest contribution to total melt. Despite differences in the individual climate models, the spatial pattern in glacier melt is similar, with glaciers contributing the majority of total melt volume occurring in similar geographic regions regardless of which temperature dataset is used. For regions where glacier areas are reasonably well-constrained, contributions from individual glaciers can be quantified. Importantly, less than 5% of glaciers contribute at least 70% of the total melt volume in the watershed. The majority of these glaciers are in Pakistan, the region with the largest percentage of known glaciers with large surface areas at lower elevations. In addition to calculating current melt volumes over large glaciated areas, this model can also be used to determine future melt rates under differing climate scenarios. By applying suggested future regional temperature change to the temperature data, the impact on average melt rate over the watershed was found to increase from 3.02 m/year to 4.69 m/year with up to 2 °C temperature increase. Assuming glacier area remains relatively constant over short time periods, this would amount to a 145 km3 increase in melt volume.

First appearing on potsherds around 3300 BC, the Indus script was primarily in use during the Mature Harappan period (ca. 2600-1900 BC) in the Indus Valley region, centred in the north-western region of the Indian Subcontinent. It is one of the last remaining undeciphered scripts of the ancient world. A great number of Indus inscriptions, however, have been uncovered at many archaeological sites in the Persian Gulf, discoveries that corroborate the inclusion of the Indus civilization as an active participant in the Mesopotamian-dominated Gulf trade of the 3rd millennium. In addition to exploring the current state of research surrounding the Indus decipherment attempts, the thesis will examine new perspectives on ancient history, arguing in favour of various possibilities of Mesopotamian, Elamite, and/or pre-dynastic Egyptian (North East African) cultural presences or influences in the ancient Indus River basin.

First appearing on potsherds around 3300 BC, the Indus script was primarily in use during the Mature Harappan period (ca. 2600-1900 BC) in the Indus Valley region, centred in the north-western region of the Indian Subcontinent. It is one of the last remaining undeciphered scripts of the ancient world. A great number of Indus inscriptions, however, have been uncovered at many archaeological sites in the Persian Gulf, discoveries that corroborate the inclusion of the Indus civilization as an active participant in the Mesopotamian-dominated Gulf trade of the 3rd millennium. In addition to exploring the current state of research surrounding the Indus decipherment attempts, the thesis will examine new perspectives on ancient history, arguing in favour of various possibilities of Mesopotamian, Elamite, and/or pre-dynastic Egyptian (North East African) cultural presences or influences in the ancient Indus River basin.

This thesis investigates the relationship between climate, agriculture and social change in South Asia’s Bronze Age urban Indus Civilisation. Specifically, my research tests the hypothesis that an abrupt weakening of the Indian Summer Monsoon ca 2100 cal BC led to increasing crop water stress, and hence potentially contributed to the Civilisation’s decline by reducing food supply. This hypothesis is frequently invoked in discussions of the Civilisation’s end, yet until now, has not been empirically tested. Using material excavated from several Indus settlements, this study uses a novel combination of isotopic techniques to directly test the connection between climate change and agricultural stress. These techniques are first, oxygen isotope analysis of faunal bones and teeth; and second, stable carbon isotope analysis of crop remains. The oxygen analyses provide detailed records of monsoon intensity at a local, human scale, while the carbon analyses provide an empirical test of whether crop water stress increased. Applied in parallel across a diverse suite of Indus sites, these techniques together provide an archaeologically and ecologically-nuanced analysis of climatic impacts. The archaeological analyses are supported by a methodological study, which investigates how water status relates to the stable carbon isotope signature in barley (Hordeum vulgare) and the Indian jujube (Ziziphus mauritiana) along a climatic transect in north-western India today. Overall, the isotopic results suggest that at the sites sampled here, climate change probably had minimal impacts on crop water availability. This does not necessarily mean that climate change had no impacts on agriculture across the greater Indus sphere, and indeed there are hints that there may have been climatic stress in more vulnerable settings. However, at the sites studied here, any hydrological consequences of climate change—including the 4.2 ka event—appear to have had neither a lasting nor a pervasive impact on the adequacy of crop water supply. This is an important finding, and necessitates a clear refinement of how we think about climatic sensitivity, climatic vulnerability, and climatic impacts across—and indeed beyond—the greater Indus.

<p>This thesis proposes an alternative perspective to the general neglect of toy materials from deeper analysis in archaeology. Based on a study of selected toy artefacts from the Classical Harappan settlement at Bagasra, Gujarat, it suggests a viable way of approaching the objects when considering them within a theoretical framework highlighting their social aspects. The study agrees with objections in e.g. parts of gender archaeology and research on children in archaeology to the extrapolating from the marginalized child of the West onto past social structures. Departing from revised toy definitions formulated in disciplines outside archaeology, it proceeds with the objects’ toy identifications while rejecting a ‘transforming’ of these into other interpretations. Thus entering a quite unexplored research field, grounded theory is used as working method. As the items indicate a regulated pattern, the opinion on toy artefacts as randomly scattered around becomes questioned. Using among others the <i>capital</i> concept by Bourdieu, the notion of <i>micropower</i> by Foucault and parts of the newly developed ideas of <i>microarchaeology</i>, the toy-role of the artefacts is emphasized as crucial, enabling the items to express diverse social uses in addition to their possible function as children’s (play)things. With this, the notion of the limiting connection of toys to playing children becomes unravelled, opening for a discussion on enlarged dimensions of the toys and a possible re-naming of them as the materialities of next generation. While suggesting the items to indicate various social strategies and structurating practices, the need for traditional boundaries and separated entities successively becomes eliminated. The traditionally stated toy obstacles with cultural loading and elusive distinctions can with this be proposed as constructions, possible to avoid. The toy concept simultaneously emerges as particularly useful in highlighting the notion of change and continuity within the social structure and children’s roles in this.</p>

This thesis proposes an alternative perspective to the general neglect of toy materials from deeper analysis in archaeology. Based on a study of selected toy artefacts from the Classical Harappan settlement at Bagasra, Gujarat, it suggests a viable way of approaching the objects when considering them within a theoretical framework highlighting their social aspects. The study agrees with objections in e.g. parts of gender archaeology and research on children in archaeology to the extrapolating from the marginalized child of the West onto past social structures. Departing from revised toy definitions formulated in disciplines outside archaeology, it proceeds with the objects’ toy identifications while rejecting a ‘transforming’ of these into other interpretations. Thus entering a quite unexplored research field, grounded theory is used as working method. As the items indicate a regulated pattern, the opinion on toy artefacts as randomly scattered around becomes questioned. Using among others the capital concept by Bourdieu, the notion of micropower by Foucault and parts of the newly developed ideas of microarchaeology, the toy-role of the artefacts is emphasized as crucial, enabling the items to express diverse social uses in addition to their possible function as children’s (play)things. With this, the notion of the limiting connection of toys to playing children becomes unravelled, opening for a discussion on enlarged dimensions of the toys and a possible re-naming of them as the materialities of next generation. While suggesting the items to indicate various social strategies and structurating practices, the need for traditional boundaries and separated entities successively becomes eliminated. The traditionally stated toy obstacles with cultural loading and elusive distinctions can with this be proposed as constructions, possible to avoid. The toy concept simultaneously emerges as particularly useful in highlighting the notion of change and continuity within the social structure and children’s roles in this.