Introduction to the “Asian Climate and Tectonics” special issue

Abstract

This special issue was initiated following the 1st ‘‘Asian Climate and Tectonics’’ conference hosted in the Netherlands from April 26 to April 29 2010 as part of the Utrecht-Asia seminar series funded by Utrecht University. This seminar is presented on a short documentary: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jY-pS9l80E Or www.geo.uu.nl/~forth/people/Guillaume/AclitecWeb.htm. The meeting gathered international scientists from transdisciplinary backgrounds including geodynamics, tectonics, climate modeling, thermochronology, stratigraphy, geochemistry, paleoclimatology, paleontology, and geophysics who are working towards understanding the interactions among climate, tectonics and surface processes in the ideal natural laboratory of Asia. The interplay between climate and tectonics in the context of Eurasian geodynamics and associated orogens (e.g., Himalaya, Tibetan Plateau, Tian Shan, Gobi-Altai, and Pamir) belong to one of the most significant and fascinating issues within modern Earth sciences (van Hinsbergen et al., 2011; Yin, 2006, 2010). Major paleoenvironmental changes, such as continental aridification and monsoon intensification have often been attributed to surface uplift and/or to evolving land-sea distributions associated with Eurasian tectonic processes, not least the India-Eurasia collision (Bosboom et al., 2011; Ramstein et al., 1997; Zhang et al., 2007). Moreover, global Cenozoic cooling with decreasing atmospheric CO2 levels has been attributed to erosion and weathering of the uplifting mountain ranges, following a period of subduction in the Tethys Ocean and the onset of a series of continental collisions (Ruddiman and Kutzbach, 1989). However, it is not only the solid Earth that affects the climate since recent findings suggest that monsoons and global climate have had a prevailing role in denudation rates shaping Eurasian orogens, in altering Asian environments and in triggering biotic events (Clift et al., 2008; Dupont- Nivet et al., 2007). This context challenges the geosciences community to establish unequivocal relationships between tectonism, global climate and major environmental changes in Asia.