A close relationship between tectonics, erosion and climate is well established following much research in diverse tectonic settings and has inspired much inter-disciplinary discussion. The Himalaya-Tibet orogen, as the major active orogeny, serves as an important natural laboratory for investigating the coupling between topographic evolution and climate forcing which are related through surficial processes. Exhumation of the Himalayan-Tibetan orogeny may have moderated global climate through the Cenozoic and currently maintains the Indian and SE Asian monsoon systems.

The newly launched Marie Curie Actions Group ‘iTECC’ (Investigating Tectonism-Erosion-Climate-Couplings) program will serve as an excellent podium to inspire discussion and further our understanding of this dynamic geological setting from a wide range of earth science disciplines.

This session will bring together innovative studies from young and experienced scientists studying the past, present and future implications of the Himalaya-Tibet orogeny. Himalayan studies from a variety of temporal and special approaches will be presented, ranging from numerical models coupling tectonics, climate and erosion; to quantifying the controls on chemical weathering and physical erosion within the Himalaya by understanding the feedback loops with global atmospheric CO2 levels. Innovative studies utilising compound-level isotopic studies, near- and far-field sedimentary basin records and detrital geochemistry to infer proximal and distal India-Asia collisional tectonics, hinterland exhumation histories of basement rocks and Himalayan evolution will be presented. This session will also include studies focusing on Himalayan weathering, erosion and climate through time, as well as, the development and refinement of analytical techniques needed to better interpret the past and present-day records of exhumation, erosion and climate processes within this dynamic orogenic belt.