| Abstract: | The paper deals with type, age, and climatic conditions of the last vast glaciation in the East Pamir Mountains. The combination of paleobotanic and geomorphological data as well as absolute age dating of the Kara-Kul lake terrace (27,700 ± 700 years old) supports the thesis that maximum glaciation occurred in the Upper Pleistocene, 14–15 thousand years ago. By special calculations it was established that the tectonic factor of glaciation practically did not exist. This confirmed the existing opinion of a number of scientists that by the beginning of the Upper Pleistocene the Pamir Mountains had almost achieved their present altitude. The analysis of paleobotanic literature permitted the assumption that the amount of precipitation was about the same as it is now: 750 mm/year at an altitude of 4950 m (altitude of the present-day firn line). It was established that the Upper Pleistocene glaciation was caused only by general climatic cooling. |
