June 2020 fieldwork in Tibet update:

Despite Covid19 our Chinese colleagues are busy collecting plant fossils (and looking at the modern flora) in the ancient Gangdese mountains. Since the Cretaceous the Gangdese have marked the southern boundary of what is now the Tibetan Plateau. They however are not alone all the way up there, they have to share their digs sites with …

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The early Eocene rise of the Gonjo Basin, SE Tibet: From low desert to high forest

Understanding the orographic development of the Tibetan Plateau through time is essential to the UMBRELLA project and measuring past landscape height is core to that understanding. It is the shape and height of the land surface that interacts with the atmosphere that in turn affects climate, vegetation type and drainage patterns, all of which feedback …

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Fossilised palm leaves give new insights into the geographical landscape of prehistoric central Tibet

The new research, co-authored by academics from Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Bristol’s School of Geographical Sciences, The Open University and Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences suggests that central Tibet must have been no higher than 2.3km with large lakes fringed with subtropical …

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