The InterMARGINS sponsored workshop took place from 5-7 June 2006 in Kochi in Japan. It was convened by Peter Clift and Wonn Soh, and was attended by 4 invited scientists from 4 countries (India, Vietnam, UK and USA).

The aim of the workshop was to explore the potential of using the Red River system as a means to understand climate-tectonic interactions in Cenozoic Asia. The Red River is selected because it derives sediment directly from the flanks of eastern Tibet. Its marine delta and fan should preserve sediment that can provide a relatively simple erosional history, which can be used to constrain the growth of the plateau. In addition, the Red River is sited on the southeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau and is believed to have once been a much larger system that was reduced through time as drainage capture transferred the original headwaters to other major rivers in Asia (e.g., Mekong, Yangtze, Salween). Since then its drainage system has been influenced by the Asian Monsoon that is considered to be linked to Tibetan surface uplift. If these capture events can be dated then these can be used to constrain the elusive uplift of Tibet.
Although IODP drilling has already been proposed for the Yinggehai-Song Hong Basin that lies between Hainan Island and Vietnam we aim to use the workshop to sharpen the science objectives of this work and specifically to see how the marine drilling might be augmented by additional programs such as continental drilling (ICDP) and land-based field geology.

The Workshop was an enormous success and was greatly enjoyed by the participants for its positive discussions.

The related documents can be accessed below.

• The Proposal for the workshop [PDF:37KB]
• Second Circular [PDF:714KB]
• Abstracts [PDF:333KB]
• Meeting Report [PDF:487KB]

More information can be found on the ABDN website.