The Chinese
Academy of Sciences' (CAS) Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Institute will
move in 2005 to Lhasa, capital of the Tibet
Autonomous Region, according to Yao Tandong, the institute's
director. The move will better enable specialists from the
institute, now located in Beijing, to conduct research on the
plateau together with specially invited, internationally renowned
experts.
Some 200 million years ago, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau formed
part of the floor of a far larger Mediterranean Sea, with the vast
Eurasian Continent to the north and the scorching Indian
Subcontinent to the south. Then, about 80 million years ago, the
Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates collided, causing the land to
rise at a relatively rapid pace and forming today's Qinghai-Tibet
Plateau. Dubbed "the roof of the world," the plateau is still
rising 0.6 to 0.9 centimeters each year.
"Many people are fascinated by the regional culture of the
Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, but its tectonic movement and various
geological effects are more mysterious to scientific circles," said
Yao.
Nearly 100 research staff with the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
Institute will move to the new building in Lhasa, which is now
under construction. They will be able to conduct on-site
investigations into such wide-ranging fields as the plateau's
lithosphere structure and progression, environmental development,
effects of geological change on the atmosphere and biological
evolution.
"Research that was previously dispersed and isolated in
specialized departments has not been able to solve some major
scientific problems," said Yao. "Our institute plans to organize
the world's leading scientists to conduct comprehensive and
integrated research on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau."
It is hoped that such integrated research will shed light on
some long-unsolved mysteries, such as identifying the mechanism
that causes the plateau to rise; the effects of this process on
weather and climate and its contribution to environmental change
throughout Asia; and biological adaptation and evolution
processes.
The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is a unique ecological system and a
gene bank of highland biological species, as well as an ideal place
for research on the earth's deep material and energy
transformation.
(China.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, September 15, 2004)