Yani Najman

I am interested in using the detrital record as an archive of paleotectonics, paleogeography, climate and erosion. I utilise emerging and established provenance techniques, in particular isotopic fingerprinting and detrital thermochronology, to advance the detrital approach and apply it to novel geological problems. In orogenic settings, my work is focused on the Himalaya, Tibet and Pamirs. Here I use the sedimentary archive of material eroded from the mountain belt and preserved in adjacent sedimentary basins to better understand the inter-relationship between tectonics, erosion and sedimentation, to reconstruct hinterland tectonics and investigate mountain-building processes, and to constrain the proposed influence of Himalayan erosion on global climate and ocean geochemistry. My recent work extends the detrital approach to extensional settings, where I am determining the provenance of the Nile delta in order to reconstruct its palaeodrainage, and the relationship between its hydrology, rift tectonics, and ocean-atmosphere interactions.