Northward migration of the eastern Himalayan syntaxis revealed by OSL thermochronometry

Unlinking erosion from uplift in Tibet Conventional wisdom suggests that the locations of gorges or “knickpoints” along the edges of large plateaus remain fixed because erosion drives tectonic uplift. Nowhere should this be more evident than the rapidly uplifting and eroding Tibetan plateau. However, King et al. found evidence for slow migration of a major knickpoint along the Parlung River in eastern Tibet. They used a new method with exceptional time resolution for determining regional cooling rates called multi–OSL (optically stimulated luminescence) thermochronology. It appears that the Parlung knickpoint is steadily moving upstream as a response to tectonic uplift that is unrelated to the local erosion rates. Science , this issue p. 800