Uplift from orogenic belts to the Tibetan Plateau: mechanisms connectivity between geological evolution and climate change

As the world’s highest and largest plateau, the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau profoundly reconfigured Asian physiography, reorganized atmospheric circulation, and drove long-term changes in surface environments and biodiversity, serving as a unique natural laboratory for investigating coupled geological–climatic–ecological processes. Integrated Earth-system research on the Tibetan Plateau therefore provides robust scientific foundations for addressing global challenges such as climate-change adaptation and mitigation, ecosystem conservation, and sustainable resource management.The Tibetan Plateau exhibits pronounced geological heterogeneity, comprising an assemblage of amalgamated terranes that have progressively amalgamated over the past ~300 Myr through successive subduction of intervening oceanic basins along suture zones. These multiple subduction and collision events resulted in the formation of heterogeneous lithosphere and variable histories of crustal deformation and surface elevation change across the Tibetan Plateau. Quantitative paleoaltimetry has become the most robust approach for reconstructing the timing, magnitude, and spatial pattern of plateau growth. Mostly applied quantitative paleoaltimetries include hydrogen and oxygen isotope paleoaltimetry, clumped-isotope thermometry, nearest living relative techniques and coexistence approach based on plant and animal fossils and palynology, moist enthalpy and biomolecular proxies. Over the past three decades, extensive paleoaltimetric reconstructions of the Tibetan Plateau have been carried out by integrating diverse proxies with paleoclimate simulations, targeting major orogenic belts (e.g., Himalaya, Gangdese, Central Watershed, Kunlun) and intermontane basins (e.g., Central Tibetan Valley, Yarlung Tsangpo Valley, Hoh Xil Basin, Qaidam Basin). With that, the scientific consensus regarding the uplift of the plateau has evolved from an early paradigm of uniform (monolithic) uplift to a more refined framework emphasizing differential and spatiotemporally variable uplift processes. Present research supports an uplift scenario in which initially discrete orogenic belts progressively coalesced into a uniform high plateau. Following Neo-Tethys subduction and the onset of India–Asia collision at ~65 Ma, the Gangdese and Central Watershed Mountain attained elevations above ~4,500 m prior to ~50 Ma, while the intermontane Central Tibetan Valley between them remained at a relatively low elevation of ~1,700 m, producing a “two mountain ranges sandwiching a low elevation basin” topography. Between ~45 and 25 Ma, progressive lithospheric removal and isostatic readjustment drove uplift of eastern Tibetan Plateau and the Central Tibetan Valley to elevations exceeding ~3,000 m, producing the earliest high-altitude plateau topography. A Mediterranean-like climate emerged in eastern Tibetan Plateau—characterized by warm and dry summer and cool and wet spring–autumn—and promoted the development of biodiversity hotspots in the Hengduan Mountains represented by the Relu and Markam Basins. By the Miocene, rapid uplift of the Himalaya and northern Tibetan Plateau brought those regions to near-modern elevations and completed the formation of the present-day plateau. During this period, the South and East Asian monsoon systems stabilized into near-modern regimes, promoting the emergence of montane monsoon forests akin to contemporary ecosystems. As a result, intensified precipitation and headwater formation rendered the plateau the source region for Asia’s major rivers and contributed to the development of fertile ecosystems in downstream basins, especially in modern South China.Despite these advances, ongoing research on the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau and its interactions among multiple Earth-system spheres remains limited by sparse paleoaltimetric data and mismatches between proxy reconstructions and model simulations. Future priorities include developing high-resolution regional Earth-system models, integrating proxies with simulations for systematic cross-validation, and advancing next-generation paleoaltimetric techniques to clarify the mechanistic linkages between tectonic evolution and climate change. These efforts constitute critical steps for understanding the Tibetan Plateau’s Earth system and its implications for regional resources and environments.