What Triggered Nepal’s Massive Debris Flow? Dr. Jeff Kargel Explains The Details

Geology professor Shawn Willsey is joined by Dr. Jeff Kargel, an expert on debris flows generated by ice-rock avalanches, to discuss the huge Nepal debris flow of August 2026. APPEAL FOR EXPERIENCED COLLABORATORS IN LAB ANALYSIS OF DEBRIS FLOW SEDIMENT From Dr. Jeff Kargel: I am planning fieldwork in the flood disaster site from around Sep. 24 to October 10, 2026. I invite geologists who have lab facilities available to collaborate for analysis work. I need quantitative X-Ray Diffraction analysis of mineralogy of sediments (including both major minerals and certain diagnostic minor mineral abundances--relative abundances are okay if the precision is high); and Total Organic Carbon or Lignin abundance in sediments; and possibly grain-mount thin sectioning and petrographic analysis. Potentially isotopic analysis of mineral separates to get apparent ages. If you wish to undertake any of these analyses and are experienced with such work and have the equipment, it would be a good coauthorship opportunity and would help us to defray the costs of the work. We hope to use the results to constrain the amount of downstream sediment bulk-up of the debris flow using various tracers. Contact me at: jkargel@psi.edu 🚨 HELP NEPAL RELIEF EFFORTS 🚨 If you are in a position to help, please consider donating to these top-rated, highly transparent charities that are funneling funds directly to frontline rescue, medical care, and rebuilding operations on the ground: 🔹 1. Direct Relief: https://www.directrelief.org/emergenc... 🔹 2. All Hands and Hearts: https://allhandsandhearts.org/ 🔹 3. Convoy of Hope: https://convoyofhope.org/donate/disas... Science article on 2021 Chamoli debris flow: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/s...