This paper reports the fossil zokors (Myospalacinae) collected from the lower Pliocene (~4.4 Ma) of Zanda Basin, southwestern Tibet, which is the first record in the hinterland of Tibetan Plateau within the Himalayan Range. Materials include 29 isolated molars belonging to Prosiphneus eriksoni (Schlosser, 1924) by having characters including large size, highly fused roots, upper molars of ortho...

We analyze a large amount of receiver function data recorded by regional seismic networks of the China Earthquake Administration to estimate crustal structure and deformation beneath the southeast margin of the Tibetan plateau and its surrounding areas. We develop a comprehensive analysis method that facilitates robust extraction of azimuthal seismic anisotropy from receiver function data. The ...

The Tibetan plateau contains thousands of small and big lakes. Changes in the water level of these lakes can be an important indicator for the water balance of the Tibetan plateau, but were until now extremely difficult to monitor: performing continuous in situ measurements at a large number of lakes is not feasible because of their remoteness, while radar altimetry is only capable of monitorin...

A range of variation in percent of oxygen saturation of arterial hemoglobin (SaO2) among healthy individuals at a given high altitude indicates differences in physiological hypoxemia despite uniform ambient hypoxic stress. In populations native to the Tibetan plateau, a significant portion of the variance is attributable to additive genetic factors, and there is a major gene influencing SaO2. T...

Host factors are regarded as important in shaping the archaeal community in the rumen but few controlled studies have been performed to demonstrate this across host species under the same environmental conditions. A study was designed to investigate the structure of the methanogen community in the rumen of two indigenous (yak and Tibetan sheep) and two introduced domestic ruminant (cattle and c...

Long-standing debates exist over the timing and mechanism of uplift of the Tibetan Plateau and, more specifically, over the connection between lithospheric evolution and surface expressions of plateau uplift and volcanism. Here we show a T-shaped high wave speed structure in our new tomographic model beneath South-Central Tibet, interpreted as an upper-mantle remnant from earlier lithospheric f...

The Taklimakan Desert is located in the foreland basin of the Tibetan Plateau. We report here the results of stratigraphic investigations of a 1626-meter-thick sequence with interbedded wind-blown silt from the southern marginal Taklimakan Desert. Because the studied section is located downwind of the desert, the eolian silt accumulation is closely linked to desert formation. Our new evidence i...

DNA barcoding is a powerful approach for characterizing species of organisms, especially those with almost identical morphological features, thereby helping to to establish phylogenetic relationships and reveal evolutionary histories. In this study, we chose a 648-bp segment of the mitochondrial gene, cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI), as a standard barcode region to establish phylogenetic r...

[1] Two of the most popular mechanisms for thickening the crust beneath the Tibetan Plateau are (1) pure shear with faulting and folding in the upper crust and horizontal shortening below and (2) flow of lower or middle crust without significant shortening of the upper crust. To help discriminate between the relative contributions of these two mechanisms, well-constrained estimates of upper cru...

The 25 April 2015 Nepal earthquake (Mw 7.8) ruptured a segment of the Himalayan front fault zone. Four absolute gravimetric stations in southern Tibet, surveyed from 2010/2011 to 2013 and corrected for secular variations, recorded up to 22.40± 1.11μGal/yr of gravity increase during this period. The gravity increase is distinct from the long-wavelength secular trends of gravity decrease over the...