Research interests

Spatio-temporal evolution of intermontane basins and mountain growth; interactions between climate, tectonics, and surface processes; stable isotope geochemistry; geochronology; cosmogenic nuclide geochemistry; stratigraphy; structural geology

Spatio-temporal interactions among tectonics, climate, erosion and sedimentation in the southern Central Andes, NW Argentina

Mountain building is one of the most significant processes in shaping Earth’s surface over geological time; at active convergent margins protracted tectonic shortening and surface uplift impact atmospheric flow patterns, and can thus cause an asymmetry in the distribution and amount of rainfall at hemispheric scale. In turn, this produces steep gradients in vegetation cover and the efficiency of erosional and depositional processes across an orogen. In mountain ranges, such as the South American Andes and the Himalaya, precipitation is focused along the windward flanks of high topography, while the orogenic interior is characterized by progressively lower rainfall amounts. In such settings, tectonics, climate, and surface processes are not only tightly linked, but there may be intriguing feedbacks among them, with the potential to impact crustal-scale processes. Importantly, tectono-climatic interactions and the resulting surface processes impact a wide range of geological and biological processes that may control the type and amount of sediment that is provided to adjacent forelands and the development of species migration corridors/barriers.

The Andes constitute an important orographic barrier in the southern hemisphere, impacting atmospheric circulation, the amount and distribution of rainfall, and Earth-surface processes in a highly asymmetric manner. In the Central Andes of NW Argentina, the Andean Plateau (Puna) and the intermontane basins of the adjacent Eastern Cordillera constitute geological archives that furnish spatiotemporal information on surface uplift and associated paleo-environmental change. Today, rainfall in NW Argentina is focused along the windward flanks of the Eastern Cordillera, while its intermontane basins and the Puna constitute high-elevation regions with strongly reduced rainfall. The present-day influence of these topographic characteristics on precipitation patterns is reflected by systematic changes in the hydrogen stable isotope ratios of meteoric water. Proxy archives from basin strata record past environmental conditions and provide insight into the nature of topographic growth through time.

Hydrogen-isotope geochemistry of hydrated volcanic glass

One particular method to investigate the relationship between tectono-sedimentary events and paleoenvironmental change is to analyze hydrated volcanic glass shards for their hydrogen stable-isotope composition as a proxy for surface uplift and associated climatic shifts. This approach is possible, because rhyolitic glass incorporates up to ca. 10 wt% of meteoric water after deposition and becomes saturated over ~1-10 kyr, after which further hydrogen exchange is negligible. Since the glass-hydration process occurs with a systematic isotopic fractionation, the D/H-ratio of the glass (δDg) represents a unique and time-integrated fingerprint of the hydrogen-isotope composition of meteoric water (δDw) present at that time. Finally, δDg-values appear to be resistant to diagenetic alteration and can be preserved over geological time scales, which makes volcanic glass a suitable material for the reconstruction of paleoenvironmental conditions and the examination of feedbacks between tectonic processes and climate. Hydrated glass therefore provides a very useful set of isotope data that can be related to climate change and/or paleoaltimetry.

Paleoerosion rate reconstruction by terrestrial cosmogenic radionuclide geochemistry

As cosmic radiation enters the Earth’s atmosphere it triggers a cascading chain reaction that causes high-energy subatomic particles to bombard the surface including rocks exposed. This particle flux interacts with Si and O in surface-near quartz-bearing rocks, by which 26Al, 10Be, 21Ne and 3He - to name the most important - is formed at certain production rates over time. The longer a rock surface is exposed to this radiation (i.e., the slower the denudation rate) the more in-situ 10Be is produced. Denudation rates from concentrations of in situ-produced cosmogenic 10Be in detrital quartz are derived from the relationship between the 10Be surface-production rate and the attained nuclide concentrations in quartz-bearing rocks upon steady hillslope denudation. River sands theoretically average denudation rates from their contributing catchments. From here it is a small, but non-trivial step to derive paleo-denudation rates from ancient river sands in sedimentary deposits.

To investigate long-term surface processes along a tectonically active mountain belt, I evaluated 10Be-derived paleo-denudation rates from the Mio-Pliocene (ca. 6–2 Ma) strata of the intermontane Humahuaca Basin (Eastern Cordillera, northwest Argentina) – a region that experienced tectonic growth of its bounding ranges, basin isolation, and orographic aridification. These results show a tenfold decrease in denudation rates coinciding with the establishment of an orographic barrier to rainfall after 3 Ma, suggesting a close link between rainfall and hillslope denudation, while background tectonics appear to play a minor role in modifying denudation.

Journal contributions:

Lothari, L., Suriano, J., Mescua, J., Llano, M. B. del, Arnous, A., Pingel, H., et al. (2025). Tectono-Sedimentary Evolution of the Distal Paleogene Andean Retroarc at 33° S: New Detrital Zircon U–Pb Geochronology From the Divisadero Largo Formation. Basin Research, 37(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/bre.70021

Arnous, A., García, V. H., Pingel, H., Giambiagi, L., & Strecker, M. R. (2024). Kinematic Evolution of the Santa Bárbara System in the Foreland of the Central Andes of Northwestern Argentina (26°S). Tectonics, 43(6). https://doi.org/10.1029/2023tc008195

Erbello, A., Colleps, C., Melnick, D., Sobel, E. R., Bookhagen, B., Pingel, H., et al. (2024). Magma‐Assisted Continental Rifting: The Broadly Rifted Zone in SW Ethiopia, East Africa. Tectonics, 43(1). https://doi.org/10.1029/2022tc007651

Pingel, H., Alonso, R. N., Bookhagen, B., Cottle, J. M., Mulch, A., Rorhmann, A., & Strecker, M. R. (2024). Reply to Carrapa et al.: Central Puna uplift: Addressing criticisms, affirming conclusions. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2406845121

Quiroga, R., Giambiagi, L., Echaurren, A., Mescua, J., Pingel, H., Fuentes, G., et al. (2024). Boundary Effects of Orogenic Plateaus in the Evolution of the Stress Field: The Southern Puna Study Case (26°30′–27°30′S). Tectonics, 43(7). https://doi.org/10.1029/2023tc008185

Pingel, H., Alonso, R. N., Bookhagen, B., Cottle, J. M., Mulch, A., Rohrmann, A., & Strecker, M. R. (2023). Miocene surface uplift and orogenic evolution of the southern Andean Plateau (central Puna), northwestern Argentina. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(42). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2303964120

Pingel, H., Deeken, A., Coutand, I., Alonso, R. N., Riller, U., Sobel, E. R., et al. (2023). Cenozoic exhumation and deformation of the intermontane Pastos Chicos Basin in the southern Central Andes: Implications for the tectonic evolution of the Andean Plateau (Puna) and the Eastern Cordillera between 23 and 24°S, NW Argentina. Tectonics, 42, e2022TC007487. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022tc007487

Erbello, A., Melnick, D., Zeilinger, G., Bookhagen, B., Pingel, H., & Strecker, M. R. (2022). Geomorphic expression of a tectonically active rift-transfer zone in southern Ethiopia. Geomorphology, 403, 108162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2022.108162

Veizaga-Saavedra, J. G., Sánchez, M. C., Martínez, O., Pingel, H., & de Francesco, C. G. (2022). Recording of multiple lake-marsh paleoenvironments during the middle Holocene in the Quebrada del Toro, NW Argentina. Revista de La Asociación Geológica Argentina, 79(1), 30–46. Retrieved from https://revista.geologica.org.ar/raga/article/view/1166

Ballato, P., Hoorn, C., Licht, A., Methner, K. A., & Pingel, H. (2021). Editorial: Reaching New Heights: Recent Progress in Paleotopography. Frontiers in Earth Science, 9, 772818. https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2021.772818

Galli, C. I., Alonso, R. N., Amorós, E. B., Pingel, H., Eveling, E., Coira, B. L., et al. (2021). Plio-Pleistocene paleoenvironmental evolution of the intermontane Humahuaca Basin, southern Central Andes. Journal of South American Earth Sciences, 111, 103502. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsames.2021.103502

Montero-López, C., Hongn, F., Steinmetz, R. L. L., Aramayo, A., Pingel, H., Strecker, M. R., et al. (2021). Development of an incipient Paleogene topography between the present-day Eastern Andean Plateau (Puna) and the Eastern Cordillera, southern Central Andes, NW Argentina. Basin Research, 33(2), 1194–1217. https://doi.org/10.1111/bre.12510

del-Papa, C., Payrola, P., Pingel, H., Hongn, F., Do-Campo, M., Sobel, E. R., et al. (2021). Stratigraphic response to fragmentation of the Miocene Andean foreland basin, NW Argentina. Basin Research. https://doi.org/10.1111/bre.12589

Figueroa, S., Weiss, J. R., Hongn, F., Pingel, H., Escalante, L., Elías, L., et al. (2021). Late Pleistocene to Recent Deformation in the Thick-Skinned Fold-and-Thrust Belt of Northwestern Argentina (Central Calchaquí Valley, 26°S). Tectonics, 40(1). https://doi.org/10.1029/2020tc006394

Payrola, P., Zapata, S., Sobel, E. R., del Papa, C., Pingel, H., Glodny, J., & Ledesma, J. (2021). Exhumation and structural evolution of the high-elevation Malcante Range, Eastern Cordillera, NW Argentina. Journal of South American Earth Sciences, 105, 102990. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsames.2020.102990

Payrola, P., del-Papa, C., Aramayo, A., Pingel, H., Hongn, F., Sobel, E. R., et al. (2020). Episodic out-of-sequence deformation promoted by Cenozoic fault reactivation in NW Argentina. Tectonophysics, 776, 228276. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tecto.2019.228276

Pingel, H., Strecker, M. R., Mulch, A., Alonso, R. N., Cottle, J., & Rohrmann, A. (2020). Late Cenozoic topographic evolution of the Eastern Cordillera and Puna Plateau margin in the southern Central Andes (NW Argentina). Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 535, 116112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2020.116112

García, V. H., Hongn, F., Yagupsky, D., Pingel, H., Kinnaird, T., Winocur, D., et al. (2019). Late Quaternary tectonics controlled by fault reactivation. Insights from a local transpressional system in the intermontane Lerma valley, Cordillera Oriental, NW Argentina. Journal of Structural Geology, 128, 103875. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsg.2019.103875

Pingel, H., Alonso, R. N., Altenberger, U., Cottle, J., & Strecker, M. R. (2019). Miocene to Quaternary basin evolution at the southeastern Andean Plateau (Puna) margin (ca. 24°S lat, Northwestern Argentina). Basin Research, 31(4), 808–826. https://doi.org/10.1111/bre.12346

Pingel, H., Schildgen, T., Strecker, M. R., & Wittmann, H. (2019). Pliocene–Pleistocene orographic control on denudation in northwest Argentina. Geology, 47(4), 359–362. https://doi.org/10.1130/g45800.1

Rohrmann, A., Sachse, D., Mulch, A., Pingel, H., Tofelde, S., Alonso, R. N., & Strecker, M. R. (2016). Miocene orographic uplift forces rapid hydrological change in the southern central Andes. Scientific Reports, 6(1), 35678. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep35678

Pingel, H., Mulch, A., Alonso, R. N., Cottle, J., Hynek, S. A., Poletti, J., et al. (2016). Surface uplift and convective rainfall along the southern Central Andes (Angastaco Basin, NW Argentina). Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 440, 33–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2016.02.009

Rohrmann, A., Strecker, M. R., Bookhagen, B., Mulch, A., Sachse, D., Pingel, H., et al. (2014). Can stable isotopes ride out the storms? The role of convection for water isotopes in models, records, and paleoaltimetry studies in the central Andes. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 407, 187–195. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2014.09.021

Pingel, H., Alonso, R. N., Mulch, A., Rohrmann, A., Sudo, M., & Strecker, M. R. (2014). Pliocene orographic barrier uplift in the southern Central Andes. Geology, 42(8), 691–694. https://doi.org/10.1130/g35538.1

Pingel, H., Strecker, M. R., Alonso, R. N., & Schmitt, A. K. (2013). Neotectonic basin and landscape evolution in the Eastern Cordillera of NW Argentina, Humahuaca Basin (~24°S). Basin Research, 25(5), 554–573. https://doi.org/10.1111/bre.12016

Hain, M. P., Strecker, M. R., Bookhagen, B., Alonso, R. N., Pingel, H., & Schmitt, A. K. (2011). Neogene to Quaternary broken foreland formation and sedimentation dynamics in the Andes of NW Argentina (25°S). Tectonics, 30(2). https://doi.org/10.1029/2010tc002703

Conference Abstracts:

Pingel, H., Mulch, A., Strecker, M. R., Alonso, R. N., Cottle, J., Rohrmann, A. (2018). From foreland to intermontane basin: Surface uplift and orographic barrier formation in the Eastern Cordillera by means of volcanic glass stable isotopes (Quebrada del Toro). Geophysical Research Abstracts, 20, EGU2018-8984, EGU General Assembly 2018, Vienna, Austria.

Pingel, H., Schildgen, T., Wittmann, H. (2017) Plio-Pleistocene paleo-erosion rates as a recorder of orographic barrier uplift in the NW-Argentine Andes (Humahuaca Basin), Geophysical Research Abstracts, 19, EGU2017-13967, EGU General Assembly 2017, Vienna, Austria.

Pingel, H., Mulch, A., Rohrmann, A., Alonso, R.N., Strecker, M.R. (2015). Hydrogen stable isotopes from hydrated volcanic glass record orogenic growth and climate change at the eastern Puna Plateau margin, NW Argentina. AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, T21B­-2816, San Francisco, USA. (Poster) 

Pingel, H., Mulch, A., Strecker, M.R., Cottle, J.M., Poletti, J., Rohrmann, A., Alonso, R.N. (2014). Orographic barrier development along the eastern flanks of the southern central Andes, Argentina: new insights from stable hydrogen isotopes in hydrated volcanic glass.  AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, T21C­-4624, 2014, San Francisco, USA. (Poster) 

Pingel, H., Strecker, M.R., Mulch, A., Rohrmann, A., Alonso, R.N. (2013). Tracking Orographic Barriers through Hydrogen Stable Isotopes in Hydrated Volcanic Glass (Humahuaca Basin, E Cordillera, NW Argentina, 23­-24°S).  AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, T41B­-2569, 2013, San Francisco, USA. (Poster) 

Pingel, H., Strecker, M.R., Mulch, A., Hynek, S.A. (2012). Orographic Barrier Uplift and Climate-System Interactions in the Southern Central Andes of NW Argentina; Insights from Stable Isotope Hydrogen Compositions of Hydrated Volcanic Glasses.  AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, T33B-2659, 2012, San Francisco, USA. (Poster) 

Pingel, H., Strecker, M.R., Hilley, G.E., Alonso, R., Schmitt, A.K. (2011). Sedimentary and Tectonic Evolution of the Intermontane Humahuaca Basin in the Eastern Cordillera of NW Argentina (~23.5°S): Possible Feedbacks between Sedimentary and Tectonic Processes. AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, T24C-07, 2011, San Francisco, USA.

Pingel, H., Strecker, M.R., Hilley, G.E., Alonso, R., Schmitt, A.K. (2011). Intermontane Basin and Landscape Evolution in the Eastern Cordillera of NW Argentina – S Humahuaca Basin (23°S). Geophysical Research Abstracts, 13, EGU2011-11654, EGU General Assembly 2011, Vienna, Austria.

Pingel, H., Strecker, M.R., Hilley, G.E., Alonso, R., Schmitt, A.K. (2009). Neotectonic Basin and Landscape Evolution in the Eastern Cordillera of NW Argentina - Humahuaca Basin (23-24°S). AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, T43B-2060, 2009, San Francisco, USA. (Poster)

Pingel, H. and Strecker, M.R. (2009). Neotectonic evolution of the southern intermontane Humahuaca basin, E Cordillera, Argentina (23°S lat): insights into Neogene to Quaternary foreland basin and landscape evolution in the southern central Andes. TECTSED 2009, Bonn, Germany. (Poster)