The Alpine-Himalaya orogeny is an exceptional natural laboratory for the study of stages in the evolution of convergent plate margins, including subduction, ophiolite emplacement, slab roll-back, collision, continent subduction and exhumation, back-arc and foreland basin evolution, strike-slip and terrane translation. Our understanding of the region can be improved from a wide range of observations and interpretations of subjects including geology (e.g., stratigraphy, sedimentation, magmatism, structure and tectonics), geophysics (e.g., seismicity, seismic imaging and palaeomagnetism) and geodetics (e.g., GPS and gravity). The region is particularly well suited for geodynamic investigations of the coupling between surface and deep processes, such as the seismic signature of Tethyan ocean lithosphere within the mantle.

Modeling clearly plays a pivotal role in bringing together and confronting disparate observations within a physical-chemical framework. New developments in modeling are, therefore, of wide interest.

Interdivision-type sessions such as this one provide an effective vehicle to present and discuss solid earth research from Alpine-Himalayan region; i.e., the entire Alpine-Himalayan collision zone, including the Alps, Carpathians, Hellenides, Taurides, Iranides, Caucasus and north African margins, Zagros, Karakorum, Tibet and Himalaya.

This year's programme of talks and posters will again be organised into regional sub-sessions to facilitate an integrated overview. This year's programme will begin in the Western Mediterranean and work eastwards, though the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East to and including, the Himalayas and Tibet. This year we particularly welcome contributions that utilise integrated data sets to compare and contrast processes and effects in the interaction of crust and mantle in different regions (e.g. crustal thickening in eastern Anatolia versus Tibet; exhumation in the Alps vs. Anatolia etc.).