eprintid: 10198003 rev_number: 13 eprint_status: archive userid: 699 dir: disk0/10/19/80/03 datestamp: 2024-10-03 11:35:55 lastmod: 2025-01-29 19:20:43 status_changed: 2024-10-03 11:35:55 type: article metadata_visibility: show sword_depositor: 699 creators_name: Han, Xu creators_name: Dai, Jin-Gen creators_name: Smith, Adam GG creators_name: Xu, Shi-Ying creators_name: Liu, Bo-Rong creators_name: Wang, Cheng-Shan creators_name: Fox, Matthew title: Recent uplift of Chomolungma enhanced by river drainage piracy ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B04 divisions: C06 divisions: F57 note: Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. - Please note that a correction was issued on 16 January 2025 which changed the licence to a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license ['This article was originally published under standard Springer Nature license (© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited). It is now available as an open-access paper under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license']. abstract: The Himalayas, which host glaciers, modulate the Indian Monsoon and create an arid Tibetan Plateau, play a vital role in distributing freshwater resources to the world’s most populous regions. The Himalayas formed under prolonged crustal thickening and erosion by glaciers and rivers. Chomolungma (8,849 m)—also known as Mount Everest or Sagarmāthā—is higher than surrounding peaks, and GPS measurements suggest a higher uplift rate in recent years than the long-term trend. Here we analyse the potential contribution of a river capture event in the Kosi River drainage basin on the renewed surface uplift of Chomolungma. We numerically reconstruct the capture process using a simple stream power model combined with nonlinear inverse methods constrained by modern river profiles. Our best-fit model suggests the capture event occurred approximately 89 thousand years ago and caused acceleration of downstream incision rates. Flexural models estimate this non-steady erosion triggers isostatic response and surface uplift over a broad geographical area. We suggest that part of Chomolungma’s anomalous elevation (~15–50 m) can be explained as the isostatic response to capture-triggered river incision, highlighting the complex interplay between geological dynamics and the formation of topographic features. date: 2024-10 date_type: published publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC official_url: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01535-w oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 2324163 doi: 10.1038/s41561-024-01535-w lyricists_name: Fox, Matthew lyricists_id: MFOXX00 actors_name: Fox, Matthew actors_id: MFOXX00 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: Nature Geoscience volume: 17 pagerange: 1031-1037 citation: Han, Xu; Dai, Jin-Gen; Smith, Adam GG; Xu, Shi-Ying; Liu, Bo-Rong; Wang, Cheng-Shan; Fox, Matthew; (2024) Recent uplift of Chomolungma enhanced by river drainage piracy. Nature Geoscience , 17 pp. 1031-1037. 10.1038/s41561-024-01535-w <https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01535-w>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10198003/1/s41561-024-01535-w.pdf