The northwest Himalayan molasse basin provides an excellent setting in which to delineate the stratigraphic and structural evolution of a foreland basin in collisional regime. Exposures are excellent, and because of the youthfulness of the basin, the interrelationships between the sedimentary and tectonic record are readily discernable. Magnetostratigraphic studies have provided reliable, quantitative chronologies for over 40 individual sections across the Potwar Plateau and adjacent regions. Until now the extraordinary potential for re-creating a detailed history of basin development based on these chronologies has remained largely untapped. We propose to utilize this temporal control to reconstruct the depositional and structural history of the foreland basin at discrete time intervals (~ every 1.5 Ma) from 12 Ma to present. We intend to analyze 1) the development of the fluvial dispersal system through time, 2) the geometric evolution of the basin as a response to imposed loads, and 3) the history of structural disruption of the proximal foreland basin. Precise chronologic constraints on the stratigraphic record are presently available and provide an unparalleled opportunity to generate a detailed, time-controlled regional synthesis of the dynamic evolution of the Himalayan foreland basin. These data should produce quantitative and conceptual stratigraphic/structural models that will serve as paradigms for the analysis of older, more dissected basins.
