Removing mantle lithosphere under orogens: delamination versus convective thinning

SUMMARY Thinning of the lithosphere under continental collisional orogens is often attributed to delamination or convective thinning. Both processes remove part or all of the mantle lithosphere that has become denser and gravitationally unstable. Previous studies mostly focused on the different thermomagmatic consequences of these two processes; the dynamic links between them, and the critical conditions for one or the other process to dominate...