A distinctive Eocene Asian monsoon and modern biodiversity resulted from the rise of eastern Tibet.

The uplift of eastern Tibet, Asian monsoon development and the evolution of globally significant Asian biodiversity are all linked, but in obscure ways. Sedimentology, geochronology, clumped isotope thermometry, and fossil leaf-derived numerical climate data from the Relu Basin, eastern Tibet, show at ∼50-45 Ma the basin was a hot (mean annual air temperature, MAAT, ∼27 °C) dry desert at a low-elevation of 0.6 ± 0.