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2025 Vol.35, Issue 3 Preview Page

Research Article

Maturity and Detrital Modes of Sand from the Karnali River System, Western Nepal
Suman Maharjan1
,
Naresh Kazi Tamrakar1*
1Central Department of Geology, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal
*Corresponding Author
30 September 2025. pp. 425-451
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Abstract

Karnali River, a Himalayan River formed after the collision of Indian and Eurasian plates, flows through steep mountain ranges having temperate to alpine climate in the north to gentle plains having tropical climate in the south separated by different tectono-stratigraphic units. Study of size, texture and mineral composition, maturity and detrital modes in an active collision related mountain belt provides insights about downstream variation in maturity and shift in detrital modes. A general downstream fining and improved sorting with angular to subangular texture predominantly indicating incomplete maturity level and inversion resembling short transport distance or erosion input from nearby lithological units were obtained. Dominance of quartz and rock fragments fluctuated throughout the river course; rock fragments that dominated the upstream stretches receded further downstream while quartz progressively increased. Micaceous minerals were more abundant in the lower reaches while feldspar and heavy minerals remained usually below 5%. The ternary plot from the weighted percentages of quartz-feldspar-lithic (QFL) indicated transitional recycled orogenic provenance while QmFLt plot indicated transitional recycled to quartzose recycled orogenic provenance. The detrital mode progressively shifted from lithic to quartzose in the sands from the Higher Himalaya to the Indo Gangetic Plain via the Lesser and the Sub-Himalayas. Such textural and compositional characteristics reflect sediment breakdown in response to the active tectonic setting and varied lithologies of the Himalayan source area, and emergence of metasedimentary and siliciclastic sedimentary terrains progressively southwards.

Keywords
Karnali River
grain size measures
sediment maturity
detrital modes
downstream variation
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Information
  • Publisher :Korean Society of Engineering Geology
  • Publisher(Ko) :대한지질공학회
  • Journal Title :The Journal of Engineering Geology
  • Journal Title(Ko) :지질공학
  • Volume : 35
  • No :3
  • Pages :425-451
  • Received Date : 2025-08-25
  • Revised Date : 2025-09-22
  • Accepted Date : 2025-09-25
  • DOI :https://doi.org/10.9720/kseg.2025.3.425
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