ESEX Commentary Tectonics, sedimentation and surface processes: from the erosional engine to basin deposition Sébastien Castelltort, 1 * Alex Whittaker 2 and Jaume Vergés 3 1 Section of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Geneva, Switzerland 2 Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College, London, UK 3 Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume Almera, ICTJA-CSIC, Barcelona, Spain Received 1 May 2015; Revised 11 May 2015; Accepted 2 June 2015 *Correspondence to: S. Castelltort, Section of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Geneva, Switzerland. E-mail: sebastien.castelltort@erdw.ethz.ch ABSTRACT: This special issue collects a number of papers mainly reflecting discussions during the ‘tectonics, sedimentation and surface processes’ sessions (TSSP) organized at recent EGU conferences (2012, 2013, 2014), as well as related studies that have ap- peared in Earth Surface Processes and Landforms over the last two years. The sedimentary record has long been used to invert for deformation at all scales and in all tectonics settings. Growth strata, sediment provenance, sequence stratigraphy and changing de- positional environments have all provided first-order constraints on quantifying deformation at a range of spatial and temporal scales. At the same time, these studies have motivated much work on the influence of tectonics on both sedimentation patterns and basin fill successions. However, relatively few studies have considered the whole integrated system of catchment erosion, fluvial transport and sediment deposition together, often concentrating on either the basin or the catchment separately. Recently however, methodolog- ical progress in quantifying rates of surface processes in the upstream erosion and transfer zones, as well as revived interest in the couplings between surface processes, tectonics and climate, have made it possible to renew our understanding of the interactions between sedimentation and tectonics within the framework of the whole integrated sediment routing system. Although the studies within this special issue are only a fraction of the work presented over the last five years of the TSSP sessions, the manuscripts pre- sented here reflect a selection of the broad content and diversity of studies that integrate both sedimentation and surface processes to understand deformation in the context of sedimentary systems. They highlight and are organized into three active challenges of the field: (1) tectonics and climate into landscapes; (2) signal propagation within sediment routing systems; and (3) modeling of tectonic and surface processes. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. KEYWORDS: surface processes; tectonics; sedimentation Introduction The topic of this special issue is not a new one; indeed, it has a historical resonance in the geosciences (Gilbert, 1877). Explor- ing how deformation is recorded in rocks is so ingrained into sedimentary geology and so broad a topic that there is not a unique line of works epitomizing the subject more than an- other. Over the years, sedimentary research related to tectonics has ranged from the study of stratigraphy at the scale of the basin (subsidence, tectonics of sedimentary basins, Ingersoll, 1988; Busby and Ingersoll, 1995; Busby and Pérez, 2011; Allen and Allen, 2013; through structure-sediment interaction (growth strata, Puigdefábregas, 1975; Riba, 1976; Suppe et al., 1992; Vergés et al., 2002; Castelltort et al., 2003); down to individual grains (provenance, Dickinson and Suczek, 1979; Weltje and Eynatten von, 2004; Garzanti et al., 2007; Weltje, 2012) and their chemistry (McLennan et al., 1993; Najman, 2006). The same assessment is true about the exploration of how de- formation is recorded in landscapes. Here, however, there is a well identified genealogy of works broadly falling under the banner of ‘tectonic geomorphology’ (Bull, 1984; Summerfield, 1991; Burbank and Anderson, 2011; Anderson and Anderson, 2010). Tectonic geomorphology is an ensemble of both methods and research questions that finds its roots in the early essays of Davis (Davis, 1889; Sherman, 1996) and was stirred by an important renewal of interest in the topic when it was realised that erosion could affect topography at the scale of oro- genic wedges and fold-belts (Chapple, 1978; Davis et al., 1983). This meant that surface processes could be at the origin of important large-scale feedbacks between erosion, climate and tectonics (Molnar and England, 1990; Avouac and Burov, 1996; Willett, 1999) a topic which remains highly-debated to this day (Wang et al., 2014; Whipple, 2014). Unsurprisingly, this general field has been extended to the influence of surface processes at the smaller scale of individual crustal faults and folds (Tucker and Slingerland, 1996; Densmore et al., 1998; Simpson, 2004; Whittaker et al., 2008). Echoing this, Leeder (2011) recently conceived ‘tectonic sedimentology’ as a sub- ject dealing primarily ‘with the direct influence of neotectonics on sedimentation and basin development, and with the inverse EARTH SURFACE PROCESSES AND LANDFORMS Earth Surf. Process. Landforms 40, 1839–1846 (2015) Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published online 14 July 2015 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/esp.3769