This multi-authored volume provides a sampling of current research into the geology of the Arabian Sea region. The editors emphasize the importance of this area as the Earth's best natural laboratory for studying relations between climate and the growth and erosion of an orogenic belt. Uplift of the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau is now believed to have altered global climate during the Cenozoic, and also to have affected the development of the region's monsoonal climate. The geological features of the region that make it a good area to study such processes include the excellent rock outcrops in the surrounding arid Arabian and Asian landmasses, the locally high rates of sedimentation which provide high-resolution sedimentological and geochemical information, and the monsoon itself, that imparts an annual time beat in some sedimentary successions. However, the region is very large and access is not always easy. Also, many areas are still poorly known geologically, such that this volume contains some papers on basic survey geology.