Himalaya Dynamics Of A Giant Tectonic Units And Structure Of The Himalaya

The Himalaya is well known as the largest and highest mountain belt on Earth. Advances in geoscience over the past few decades have revealed a complex picture of the dynamics of this giant, opening up questions about the initial stages of Himalayan building, lateral variations in its structures, variations in tectonic forcing, tectonic-climate coupling and assessments of the natural hazards affecting this area. In this three-volume book, we present the current knowledge on the building and present-day behavior of the Himalayan range. The objective is not to be exhaustive, but to provide some key elements used by researchers to unravel the many processes acting in the Himalayan dynamics. Mountain environments are at the forefront of climate change with glacier retreat, landslides, flash floods and water availability. Understanding the delicate balance that controls the dynamics of the Himalayan giant is now, more than ever, a major challenge for the scientific community.

The Himalaya is well known as the largest and highest mountain belt on Earth. Advances in geoscience over the past few decades have revealed a complex picture of the dynamics of this giant, opening up questions about the initial stages of Himalayan building, lateral variations in its structures, variations in tectonic forcing, tectonic-climate coupling and assessments of the natural hazards affecting this area. In this three-volume book, we present the current knowledge on the building and present-day behavior of the Himalayan range. The objective is not to be exhaustive, but to provide some key elements used by researchers to unravel the many processes acting in the Himalayan dynamics. Mountain environments are at the forefront of climate change with glacier retreat, landslides, flash floods and water availability. Understanding the delicate balance that controls the dynamics of the Himalayan giant is now, more than ever, a major challenge for the scientific community.

This Monograph Aims To Apprise Readers Of The Natural Events That Occurred And The Processes That Were In Operation Before The Emergence Of The Giant Edifice Of The Himalaya. Helping To Achieve Clearer Understanding Of The Structural Architecture Or Makeup, The Book Purports To Highlight The Mechanisms And The Stages Of Development Of The World S Youngest Mountain Province. The Text Is Supplemented With Exhaustive Data, Maps, Figures And Colour Photographs.

The Himalayan mountain belt, which developed during the India–Asia collision starting about 55 Ma ago, is a dramatically active orogen and it is regarded as the classic collisional orogen. It is characterized by an impressively continuous 2500 km of tectonic units, thrusts and normal faults, as well as large volumes of high-grade metamorphic rocks and granites exposed at the surface. This constitutes an invaluable field laboratory, where amazing crustal sections can be observed directly in very deep gorges. It is possible to unravel the tectonic and metamorphic evolution of litho-units, to observe the mechanisms of exhumation of deep-seated rocks and the propagation of the deformation. Himalayan tectonics has been the target of many studies from numerous international researchers over the years. In the last 15 years there has been an explosion of data and theories from both geological and geophysical perspectives. This book presents the results of integrated multidisciplinary studies, including geology, petrology, magmatism, geochemistry, geochronology and geophysics, of the structures and processes affecting the continental lithosphere. These processes and their spatial and temporal evolution have major consequences on the geometry and kinematics of the India–Eurasia collision zone.

The Himalaya–Karakoram–Tibet mountain belt resulted from Cenozoic collision of India and Asia and is frequently used as the type example of a continental collision orogenic belt. The last quarter of a century has seen the publication of a remarkably detailed dataset relevant to the evolution of this belt. Detailed fieldwork backed up by state-of-the-art structural analysis, geochemistry, mineral chemistry, igneous and metamorphic petrology, isotope chemistry, sedimentology and geophysics produced a wide-ranging archive of data-rich scientific papers. The rationale for this book is to provide a coherent overview of these datasets in addressing the evolution of the mountain ranges we see today. This volume comprises 21 specially invited review papers on the Himalaya, Kohistan arc, Tibet, the Karakoram and Pamir ranges. These papers span the history of Himalayan research, chronology of the collision, stratigraphy, magmatic and metamorphic processes, structural geology and tectonics, seismicity, geophysics, and the evolution of the Indian monsoon. This landmark set of papers should underpin the next 25 years of Himalayan research.

This book provides information essential for anyone interested in climate and environmental change of the Himalayan region, including land and resource managers, environmental planners, conservationists, environmentalists, geographers, climatologists, ecologists, and students. The book is unique in its coverage of the current understanding of the science of climate change in the Himalayan mountain system and of the major impacts on physical systems and ecosystems. The book gives an overview of the physical science basis of climate change and explains drivers and processes of glacier and vegetation dynamics. The book covers relevant aspects of accelerated climate change observed in the Himalayan mountain system, and highlights the regional differentiation of climatic changes and associated environmental modifications. The focus is on climate variability and change, and how physical systems and ecosystems respond to climate change impacts. Consequences include impacts on physical systems such as glacier shrinkage, glacial lake outburst floods, altered hydrological characteristics, permafrost warming and thawing, and mass movements on slopes. Climate change is also a powerful stressor on ecosystems and induces range shifts of plant and animal species and alterations in terms of phenology, biomass, plant cover, plant group dominance and species composition. Thus, ecosystem structure and functioning will be strongly affected. The book has an introductory chapter followed by a section on climate change, a section on impacts on glaciers and hydrology, and a section on vegetation dynamics. Each section has several chapters presenting key concepts, major drivers and key processes of environmental change in the Himalayan region from different perspectives. Climate change impacts in the Himalaya have not been studied in much detail, and respective findings were not presented so far in a comprehensive overview. This book summarizes the current knowledge of interactions between climate change and the dynamics of glaciers, hydrology, and vegetation.