Erosion in southern Tibet shut down at ∼10 Ma due to enhanced rock uplift within the Himalaya

The Himalaya-Tibet plateau system formed by collision between India and Asia that began ca. 50 Ma and is still ongoing today. Despite being the most studied example of continent-continent collision, the evolution of topography in the Himalaya and Tibetan plateau remains an area of vigorous debate and active research. We present geochemical data on the cooling history of granites from the southern Tibetan plateau, which indicate that exhumation of these granites and therefore erosion rates in this region decreased significantly by ∼10 Ma after ∼5 Ma of rapid erosion. We hypothesize that this change in erosion rate reflects a tectonically imposed shift of the topographic and drainage divides south to their current positions within the Himalaya.