Editor's Summary
9 February 2006
A high old time in Tibet
The Himalayan mountains are testament to the massive forces involved when continents collide, and the elevation history of the adjoining Tibetan plateau provides an extended record of the event. An analysis of palaeo-altitude at the centre of the Tibetan Plateau, using oxygen-isotope based measurements of carbonates, more than doubles the period of known existence of the central region of the plateau, to 35 million years. The surface elevation of Tibet has been more than 4 kilometres for all of that time. The new data are consistent with models that explain plateau uplift as a consequence of crustal thickening, rather than mantle thickening and convective removal
News and Views: Earth science: The rise and growth of Tibet
It is not difficult to be impressed by the grandeur of high mountainous regions, but it is difficult to reconstruct how the elevation of such regions evolved. A study of the Tibetan plateau does just that.
Andreas Mulch and C. Page Chamberlain
doi:10.1038/439670a
Article: Palaeo-altimetry of the late Eocene to Miocene Lunpola basin, central Tibet
David B. Rowley and Brian S. Currie
doi:10.1038/nature04506