Recent work from the Greater Caucasus is focused on understanding the relationship between topography, along-strike gradients in both modern tectonics and climate, and measures of erosion rate (Forte et al., 2022a) and exhumation rate (Forte et al., 2022b). This largely builds on past efforts to understand the reflection of tectonics in the topography of the Greater Caucasus (e.g., Forte et al., 2014, Forte et al., 2016) and tectonic processes important for those relationships (e.g., Mumladze et al., 2015).

A significant portion of active deformation within the eastern Greater Caucasus is localized within the Kura Fold-Thrust Belt. My students and I have endeavored to understand the structural geometry of the belt and its relation to the Greater Caucasus through time (e.g., Forte et al., 2010, Forte et al., 2013, Forte et al., 2015, Sukhishvili et al., 2020).

The southeastern foreland of the Greater Caucasus as exposed within the Kura Fold-Thrust Belt presents a rich archive of the tectonic evolution of both the Greater Caucasus and the thrust belt itself. Past work has focused on better characterizing the drivers of depositional environments and the stratigraphic framework of this portion of the foreland (e.g., van Baak et al., 2013, Forte & Cowgill, 2013, Forte et al., 2015). Ongoing efforts consider the provenance evolution of the northern Kura Basin (Forte et al., In Prep) and a more complete history of depositional environments within the southeastern Greater Caucasus and implications for the dominance of tectonic or climatic signals preserved in the stratigraphy (Fowler & Forte, In Prep).