The collision and penetration of India into mainland Asia offers an outstanding laboratory for understanding continental collisions in general. In addition, the region also provides the most dramatic example of solid Earth‐atmospheric coupling in the recent geologic past. Mountain‐building profoundly affects global circulation in the northern hemisphere, and the resulting climate changes in South Asia have caused rates of continental erosion to change through time, affecting the chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans, and in turn, the global climate. Erosion of the Himalayas and adjacent terrain has formed the world's two largest submarine sediment masses, the Indus and Bengal submarine fans, which together contain records of both the tectonic development of the collision zone and environmental changes resulting from it.