Scientific topics
The existence of coupling and feedbacks between tectonics, climate and erosion has been theorized on the basis of analytical, numerical and analogue models for over twenty years now, but demonstrating such realtionships from field data remains very difficult.
The objective of our team is to progress on this theme by acquiring more precise data on the chronology of various events, in order to establish cause-and-effect links, by a quantitative understanding of the evolution of relief, leading to a better understanding of the physical parameters responsible for relief evolution, and by studying sedimentary archives in the basins. Finally, we are developing a new generation of digital models capable of integrating and synthesizing physical processes in a more advanced way.
We combine structural and sedimentological field knowledge in emblematic mountain belts such as the Himalayas,the Andes,the Alps; an internationally recognized Geo-thermochronology laboratory for (OSL,Cosmogenic, and fission-track dating; and the modelling of thermochronological data. Finally, we work on conceptualization at the scale of the lithosphere, through thermo-mechanical and analogue modelling, and the use of geophysical data, in order to characterize the coupling between deep-Earth and surface processes.
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