Weathering regime in the Eastern Himalaya since the mid-Miocene: indications from detrital geochemistry and clay mineralogy of the Kameng River Section, Arunachal Pradesh, India

It is crucial to understand lateral differences in paleoclimate and weathering in order to fully understand the evolution of the Himalayan mountain belt. While many studies have focused on the western and central Himalaya, the eastern Himalaya remains poorly studied with regard to paleoclimate and past weathering history. Here, we present a multi-proxy study on the Mio-Pliocene sedimentary foreland-basin section along the Kameng River in Arunachal Pradesh, northeast India, in order to obtain better insight in the weathering history of the eastern Himalaya. We analysed a continuous sedimentary record over the last 13 Ma. Heavy-mineral and petrography data give insight into diagenesis and provenance, showing that the older part of the section is influenced by diagenesis and that sediments were not only deposited by a large Trans-Himalayan river and the palaeo-Kameng river, but also by smaller local tributaries. By taking into account changes in diagenesis and provenance, results of clay mineralogy and major element analysis show an overall increase in weathering intensity over time, with a remarkable change between ca. 10 and ca. 8 Ma.