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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">EGUsphere</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>EGUsphere</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">EGUsphere</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub"></issn>
<publisher><publisher-name>Copernicus Publications</publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/egusphere-2026-3678</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>Multi-decadal evolution of ice-debris complexes at Muztagh Ata (Eastern Pamir) derived from Corona KH-4A and Pl&amp;eacute;iades stereo images</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Sun</surname>
<given-names>Zhangyu</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Bolch</surname>
<given-names>Tobias</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8201-5059</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff3">
<sup>3</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Falaschi</surname>
<given-names>Daniel</given-names>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff4">
<sup>4</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Bhattacharya</surname>
<given-names>Atanu</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7449-3897</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff5">
<sup>5</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff6">
<sup>6</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Liu</surname>
<given-names>Lin</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9581-1337</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff7">
<sup>7</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>State Key Laboratory of Water Disaster Prevention, Hohai University, Nanjing, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong,  China</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff3">
<label>3</label>
<addr-line>Institute of Geodesy, Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff4">
<label>4</label>
<addr-line>Instituto Argentino de Nivología, Glaciología y Ciencias Ambientales (IANIGLA), CCT Mendoza-CONICET, Argentina</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff5">
<label>5</label>
<addr-line>Department of Earth Sciences &amp; Remote Sensing, JIS University, Kolkata, India</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff6">
<label>6</label>
<addr-line>Centre for Data Science, JIS Institute of Advanced Studies &amp; Research, Kolkata, India</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff7">
<label>7</label>
<addr-line>Institute of Environment, Energy and Sustainability, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>07</day>
<month>08</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>26</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Zhangyu Sun et al.</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3678/">This article is available from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3678/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3678/egusphere-2026-3678.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://egusphere.copernicus.org/preprints/2026/egusphere-2026-3678/egusphere-2026-3678.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Ice-debris complexes are glacial-periglacial transitional landforms including rock glaciers that provide important insights into geomorphological evolution and represent substantial yet overlooked water reservoirs. However, their formation and evolution remain poorly constrained. Here, we investigate ice-debris complexes at Muztagh Ata, Eastern Pamir, using historical Corona KH-4A stereo images acquired in 1967 and very-high-resolution Pl&amp;eacute;iades tri-stereo data acquired in 2013 and 2019 to reconstruct elevation changes over five decades and derive surface velocities for the recent period. Our results reveal a three-zone geomorphological organization comprising a glacier, a glacier-affected, and a periglacial zone. The glacier-affected zone exhibits extensive thermokarst features and substantial surface lowering, locally exceeding 100 m between 1967 and 2019, whereas the periglacial zone is dominated by rock glaciers with maximum surface velocities of up to 6 m/yr. These zones occupy approximately 39.4 km&amp;sup2;, 6.5 km&amp;sup2;, and 9.4 km&amp;sup2;, respectively. Despite their considerably smaller area, the glacier-affected and periglacial zones experienced ice volume losses comparable to those of the glacier zone during 1967&amp;ndash;2019. Our observations suggest that multiple evolutionary pathways can operate simultaneously within a single ice-debris complex. Glacier-affected landforms may progressively evolve into rock glaciers, whereas debris-covered glaciers may advance onto or become embedded within pre-existing rock glaciers. This study provides new insights into the evolution of ice-debris complexes and highlights the need to incorporate these landforms into glacier inventories and hydrological models for water resource assessments in High Mountain Asia and other mountainous regions on Earth.</p>
</abstract>
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