Aksai Chin Research Articles

China- India Border Crisis: Causes and Implications 1962-2023

For more than seventy years, the Sino-Indo border crisis has become an endless imbroglio with no settlement in sight. Relations between the two Asian giants have soured over the last decade, particularly following a 2020 boundary skirmish between Indian and Chinese soldiers in the Galwan area. The issue of a disputed border emerged in the early 1950s when the People’s Republic of China affected her capture of Tibet. This act created for China and India one of the lengthiest undefined boundaries in the globe. The China-India border stretches for approximately 3,488 kilometers (2,167 miles) across the Himalayan mountain range, separating the two countries. The main areas of contention are the western sector (Aksai Chin region administered by China but claimed by India) and the eastern sector (Arunachal Pradesh region administered by India but claimed by China). This dispute has led to several military standoffs and border skirmishes between the two countries over the years. The intricate and protractedness of this border conflict made this work try to find out the causes and implications of this crisis to the Asian region and the world generally. To do this effectively, we employ secondary sources where data was collected from textbooks, diplomatic records, academic literature, newspapers, journals, magazines, and internet materials. The data collected was analyzed through documentary evidence while the contested border and territorial nationalism theory were used as the analytical tool. The work discovered that factors like unresolved border issues, historical crises, strategic concerns, ideological biases, failed diplomatic negotiations, military considerations, the Tibetan refugees crisis, Cold War dynamics, and limited communications were some of the issues that led to the border crisis between the two Asian giants. Furthermore, the work found out that the implications engendered by the China-India border crisis are severe and expansive like heavy militarization of the China-Indian border, strategic instability in Asia, India’s more assertive foreign policy, China’s global image damage, policy implications, and arms race between the two Asian giants. The work concluded that China and India should strive for a harmonious and sustainable joint boundary commission that will map and mark their boundaries as this option if meticulously and strictly followed will tremendously benefit both and all.

THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE DE FILIPPI EXPEDITION (1913–1914) TO THE GEOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE AKSAI CHIN REGION (WESTERN HIMALAYA)

ABSTRACT Between the years 1913 to 1914 the De Filippi Expedition, led by the Italian explorer and mountaineer Filippo De Filippi (1869–1938), traversed the Himalayan Range from Kashmir to Baltistan and Xinjiang. Exploring mostly unknown territories, traveling more than 2000 kilometers, and equipped with advanced instruments for geodetic and meteorological measurements, the expedition members surveyed, mapped and collected rocks and fossils including from the remote Aksai Chin region. After almost two years, the expedition returned to Italy, however, publication of the findings was delayed due to the outbreak of the First World War. The fossil material and syntheses of the geology and stratigraphy of the area represented unique documents on this sector of Western Tibet, with the Cretaceous Period being documented by the expedition for the first time in the whole Trans-Himalayan Range. The Aksai Chin region remains poorly explored even today, and the De Filippi collection which is housed in the Natural History Museum of the University of Florence now represents one of the few records available for reconstructing the stratigraphy of the area. It constitutes a valuable resource regarding the history of the scientific exploration and understanding of the geology and paleontology of the region, providing a unique window into a very remote and fascinating part of the world.

India–China Standoff in Ladakh and China’s Dilemma

This article seeks to provide an answer to the question which has not been explored in the relevant academic scholarship: What are the merits and demerits of China restoring status quo ante or maintaining status quo along the disputed Line of Actual Control and why? This article argues that status quo renders China multiple geopolitical, geo-economic and geostrategic advantages: restoring its 1960s claim line and tactical and strategic gains along the LAC, security of Aksai Chin and inhibiting India’s rise. However, it also creates prospects for India–China conflict/war which will curtail (a victorious) China’s quest to become the pre-eminent global power. And a defeat/stalemate in conflict/war with India will impact China’s standing in global affairs, and repercussions for Communist Party of China’s regime stability and regime survival. On the other hand, restoring status quo ante also has tactical and strategic costs, and can also have domestic political costs for President Xi Jinping.

Application of the Principle of Effective Control in International Law: On the Question of Sovereignty over the Aksai Chin Region

Application of the Principle of Effective Control in International Law: On the Question of Sovereignty over the Aksai Chin Region

Chinese Stance on Kashmir Dispute: An Over View

Kashmir issue was a left over by history and exists before the proclamation of China as People Republic of China. China that is the major regional power and second largest economy of the world is concerned over the peace and prosperity of the region. The peace of region was always on stake due to the lingering of Kashmir dispute. A number of factors have enhanced the significance of Chinese stance towards Kashmir dispute e.g. the geographical proximity, as international and regional power, and occupation of some part of Kashmir territory (Aksai Chin and territory ceded by Pakistan to China in 1963). Chinese stance on this dispute varies over different periods of time. There are a number of factors that affect the stance of China to resolve this dispute. It is an attempt to highlight the significance of Chinese stance to resolve this dispute and factors behind the change in its stance.

The Frontier Complex: Geopolitics and the Making of the India-China Border, 1842–1962 by Kyle J. Gardner

Gardner gives us a comprehensive account, at once compelling and authoritative, of what he calls the “frontier complex” along the high Himalayas from its early exploration to the 1962 war between India and China. An initial introductory chapter examines the meanings of frontiers, borders, and borderlands in the context of contemporary theories of space and place. He then proceeds to an account of the precolonial history of Ladakh. This high desolate plateau, Gardner insists, was no “geographic periphery,” but a “religious, political and commercial nexus” sustained by trade (above all in pashmina wool, used in fine shawls) between Central Asia, Tibet, and India (28, 59). The territory possessed no marked borders, only “border points” where kingdoms met and taxes were levied.Tension emerged between two visions of a border for Ladakh as the British began exploring into the Himalayas from the mid-nineteenth century onward. Was it to be a “bounded” territory, with a boundary devised to exclude hostile neighbors from advancing into India? Or were the existing “open” borders to be expanded by developing roads and communication? Boundaries of course, as Gardner describes in a fascinating chapter, require surveys, which are meant to produce maps. But in this remote, arid region, the normal “scientific” trigonometric practices of the Survey of India proved impractical. Hence the British devised what they called the “water-parting principle” whereby the edge of a watershed—in this case that of the Indus River—was used to establish a border (81). But the origins of the Indus lay high on the slopes of unmarked and unclimbed ridges, while the local streams themselves, as one official put it, were of a “tortuous, shifting, and erratic character” (71). As a result, even up until 1947, maps of India included no northwestern borders at all. The “cartographical thinking” that imbued maps with authority had failed (62, 88).Control required communications. In 1850 the British began construction of the Hindustan-Tibet Road, followed in 1870 by the Treaty Road negotiated with the Kashmir maharaja to expand access to Central Asian markets. As acknowledgement of British supremacy, the Kashmir maharaja was obliged to submit an annual tribute of one horse and twelve “shawl” goats. (Alas, taken from their lofty habitat, the goats invariably died.) In any case, by the century’s end British interests had shifted from trade to security. Roads initially meant to facilitate movement had, especially with the growth of Russian encroachment, been transformed into “tools for restricting potentially dangerous ‘trans-frontier’ people” (131). In this new climate of “invasion anxieties,” Boundary Commissions flourished, and adventurers like the “frontier hero” Francis Younghusband set out to “open” Tibet. Still, throughout, “a motley assortment of nomads, traders, and goats” remained as “symbols of the limits of imperial state legibility” (178, 179).The concluding chapter takes the reader into the Independence era. In a time of nationalism, nations required boundaries. A geography integrated into the “geobody” of the nation also demanded, in an era of geopolitical rivalries, “a strong and scientific borderline” (229). This left Ladakh in a paradoxical position as both central to emerging national rivalries and yet as an increasingly isolated and ambiguously defined territory. The outcome was Jawaharlal Nehru’s 1955 drawing of a definite, but undemarcated, boundary line, and the consequent Chinese advance across the Aksai Chin plateau. The 1962 war produced the Actual Line of Control, a border, as Gardner points out, based on no particular geographic principle, but nevertheless one central to the Indian nation, even “something to die for” (253).This impressive volume will engage the interest not only of scholars of South Asia but also of geographers, political scientists, and environmental historians who seek to understand the interplay of geography, geopolitics, and the making of states.

The Frontier Complex: Geopolitics and the Making of the India-China Border, 1846–1962

At a moment when India and China are clashing over their borders once again, this book is a timely examination of the “scientific” practices deployed by the British colonial state in India through the course of the long nineteenth century to bring those borders into existence. In particular, it details the mapping of the region of the northwestern Himalayas, with Ladakh at its center, that led to its transformation from a crossroads of economic, political, and cultural exchange to an imperial frontier to be policed and enforced. The book argues that imperial attempts at mapping the region and demarcating borderlines within it were only partially successful, leaving behind a colonial legacy that the postcolonial states inherited and continue to wrestle with. Not only has this legacy embittered relations between the two neighbors, but perhaps most poignantly, it has rendered the once-prosperous entrepôt of Ladakh into “a fractured and disputed borderland” (3).The most interesting aspect of this book is its discussion of the emergence of the sciences of governance and geopolitics in the context of border-making practices. The colonial state's utilization of the tools provided by the emergent discipline of geography to transform indigenous notions of space into territory that could be physically rendered on a map was preceded and accompanied by numerous attempts to survey and collect information about these spaces. This, in turn, generated a slew of manuals, such as gazetteers, which presented this information about the newly mapped territories in great detail and served as tools to more effectively govern and control them. As intelligence-gathering on the frontiers intensified and more resources were expended on it, so did the desire to regulate the border itself, through road-building and other such activities. These interrelated projects gave rise to geopolitics, a new way of thinking that combined geographical information with territory and security. Knowledge of rivers, mountains, watersheds, and other such natural resources was rendered critical to the formation and maintenance of states, particularly on their frontiers.The irony of this geopolitical project, the book demonstrates, was that it failed in the very laboratory that was crucial to its birth—the northwestern Himalayas—where it was unable to draw a single line through the Aksai Chin that would demarcate a clear border between India and China. This was not from lack of trying, and the story of the repeated attempts to do so forms a large part of the book. The individuals involved in this project—besides the British surveyors, cartographers, adventurers, and spies—were the “trans-frontier men,” as the book refers to them. These men regularly traversed the emergent frontier and included highly skilled Indian pundits who drew on indigenous knowledge to assist in surveying and mapping, as well as Yarkandi and Ladakhi officials, traders, and pony drivers, among others. It is here that the book misses an opportunity to give readers a more textured sense of these individuals themselves, their life histories, and how they navigated the new political landscape while shaping the emergent science of geopolitics.The most significant victim of this project of imperial boundary-making and its postcolonial legacies, the book illustrates well, has been Ladakh, which was a part of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir during the colonial period, then became a part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir in independent India, and since 2019 has been a union territory ruled directly by the Indian central government. While on the one hand it has been caught up in two geostrategic conflicts—the struggle between China and India on their borders as well as the dispute between India and Pakistan over the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir—on the other, it has come to occupy an increasingly ambiguous and marginalized position within the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and India as a whole. As the book demonstrates, ever since Ladakh was territorialized and its territory became central to the imperial frontier and later the border of the nation state, its inhabitants have been rendered into not much more than peripheral actors to be surveilled and controlled in the name of imperial and national security.The Frontier Complex is an engaging account of the confluence of geographical knowledge, definitions of territory, and ideas of security in the creation and maintenance of imperial borders in the nineteenth century, which have had profound implications for the relationships among states into the twenty-first century. It is thus a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the antecedents of these relationships and what continues to drive them at the contemporary moment.

Rational Choices in Sino-Indian Border Dispute in Aksai

This study aims to explain the strategies taken by two major countries in the region, China and India, in overcoming border disputes in the Aksai Chin region. By using rational choice theory to explain the behavior of India and China and the reasons why they choose to use non-confrontational strategies. The research methodology used is qualitative with a case study model to analyze the policies of the two countries. The results of the study found that despite different views regarding Aksai Chin, the two countries both built trust and were committed that the border dispute would not affect their bilateral relationship as a whole. India and China have opted for a strategy of optimizing mutual benefits over purely national interests. It can be concluded that the two countries chose to take a non-confrontational policy in the border dispute in Aksai Chin as a rational choice in times of crisis based on the optimal benefits that can be obtained by both countries. Keywords: Aksai Chin, border dispute, India-China, non-confrontational policy, rational choice

Spatiotemporal Variations of Aksai Chin Lake and its influencing factors during 1972-2018

In the context of increasing lake expansion on the Tibetan Plateau, which is sensitive to climate change, it is of great significance to strengthen the research on the characteristics of lake change and its response to climate change. This paper was designed to investigate the spatiotemporal variations of Aksai Chin Lake (ACL), a typical large lake on the Tibetan Plateau, by using Landsat MSS/TM/ETM+/OLI images during 1972-2018, and to quantitatively discuss the effects of climate on lake changes based on meteorological data from Shiquanhe station. During 1961-2018, annual mean air temperature and precipitation in this region increased at rates of 0.44 °C/decade and 1.35 mm/decade, respectively, with a mutation point of 1999 for temperature, while evaporation decreased at the rate of -54.3 mm/decade, with two mutation points in 1972 and 2014, respectively. The area of ACL had increased at an average rate of 2.51 km2 per year, with a fluctuation of “slight expansion – shrinkage – rapid expansion – slight expansion – rapid expansion” during 1972-2018. Controlled by the topography, the ACL expanded to the southeast by 3851.6 m in total. In terms of the lake area response to climate change, air temperature and evaporation were the main factors affecting ACL area directly, while precipitation mainly regulated ACL by the indirect effect through air temperature and evaporation. Generally, rising air temperature, increasing precipitation and decreasing evaporation all contribute to promote the expansion of ACL.

Seizing a Window of Opportunity? The Causes and Consequences of the 2020 Sino-Indian Border Stand-off

In 2020, the Sino-Indian Line of Actual Control (LAC) witnessed several violent clashes between the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Indian military that resulted in a tense stand-off between the two highly mobilised armies and plunged Sino-Indian bilateral relations to its lowest point since the 1962 border war. Whilst confrontations between Chinese and Indian border forces are relatively commonplace, this recent crisis has proven remarkable due to the ferocity of the clashes and the alarming pace and degree to which established rules of engagement on the LAC have broken down. With both sides seemingly locked in a stalemate, it is prudent to reflect on the causes and significance of the current stand-off. This article argues that the crisis was largely precipitated by China’s calculation that India’s recent border infrastructure building activities and assertive domestic and foreign policy in the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir could threaten the PLA’s tactical advantage along the border, and eventually undermine China’s hold over the disputed Aksai Chin region. Acting on these perceptions and sensing that a ‘window of opportunity’ could be rapidly closing, the Chinese government authorised the PLA to initiate actions to consolidate its advantageous position on the LAC. Although both militaries are fully mobilised and in close proximity across the LAC, both sides clearly recognise the decision to go to war would not benefit either side. Hence, both sides will need to engage in some deft diplomacy going forward to resolve the current crisis and to reset bilateral ties.

China : Xinjiang :: India : Kashmir

Kashmir and Xinjiang share a border. Or, more precisely, the erstwhile princely state of Kashmir that is now divided between India, Pakistan, and China (and officially known as Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh; Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan; Aksai Chin, respectively) shares a border with eastern Turkestan and Tibet—currently officially called Xinjiang and Xizang. In addition to this geographic proximity, Kashmir and Xinjiang are marked by a complex patchwork of ethnic and religious identities, and have borne the weight of contested sovereignty claims throughout most of the modern era... For those of us—scholars, policymakers, and activists—who are able to witness the nature of the unfolding political dynamic in the two rising powers of China and India, it is important to highlight the commonalities in terms of strategies, speech acts, and circulations of technology that facilitate such projects. Further and more broadly, as I have argued here, we need to challenge the instrumentalisation of the moral wound of colonialism that translates into a postcolonial error, whereby non-Western countries are able to secure legitimacy and justification for their own exercise of colonial power.

From Non-Alignment to Multi-Alignment: India Hopes to Contain China

In 1954, India did a ‘Himalayan Blunder’ of having fallen into China’s trap of accepting Tibet to be a part of China. In ‘1962 Indo- China War’, China’s biggest argument of its having claim over Ladakh was that since Ladakh was a part of Tibet and thus belongs to China. But the historical perspective, altogether, contradicts it. Having annexed Tibet and forcefully occupying Aksai Chin, there was no looking back for China; be it in 1965, 1967, 1987, 2013, 2017; and now in 2020. Every time, the Chinese rulers would invent one lie or the other. Xi Jinping, the present Chinese President, imbibes the qualities of both- Mao Tse Tung, Chinese ideologue, a protagonist of the ‘Expansionist Ideology’ and the philosopher- Sun Yat-sen who wrote “The Art of War” and believed that“The greatest victory is that which requires no battle”. Xi Jinping is an expert in both. He did ‘land grabbing’ not just of India and Tibet rather China has 17 territorial disputes with its neighbours, on land and sea. He has also applied ‘Debt- Diplomacy’; mostly on the nascent, economically weak, fragile democracies to subjugate them without firing a bullet. What to talk of entrapping India’s immediate friendly neighbours under his ‘Debt-net’ by using it as a political ideology called “String of Pearls” (weaning away friendly Indian neighbours with the money power), China has loaned over $ 1.5 trillion(5% of its GDP) to more than 150 countries that make it a bigger lender than even W.B. and IMF that compares it well with the USA. China's stance along LAC fits well with a larger pattern of the ‘Expansionist Ideology of Mao. Modi, unlike Nehru, chose to follow Multi-Alignment and befriended countries both the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and the South China Sea lying in the periphery of China by garlanding China with a ‘Necklace of Diamonds’ which gave India the strategic access and fast-developing routes to Central Asians, East Asian and South-East Asian countries. Moreover, the USA, India, Australia and Japan formed ‘The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue QUAD’ in case of any emergency. India’s ‘Look East Policy; has paid it the dividends with the USA openly playing the role of a deterrent to China in South China; Australia gave a military base in Cocos Islands, France supplied Rafales and good-humoured Russia, unlike the Russia of 1962, is supplying India with the much needed Military pieces of Equipment while refusing the S-400 to China. The suspected role of China in the pandemic COVID-19 has made it ‘a persona non- grata’ in the eyes of many countries. The anti-democracy Security Law in Hong Kong and the USA’s open support to the ‘Independent Tibet’ and recognizing ‘Taiwan as a Sovereign State’ has threatened ‘One China Principle’ which has resulted in the taming China by India.

Stratigraphic and taxonomic considerations on the Late Cretaceous rudist fauna of Aksai Chin (Western Tibet, China) from the De Filippi Collection

The rudist fauna collected in western Tibet in the Aksai Chin area by the De Filippi expedition in 1914 has been reprised and redescribed. This fauna is composed of Radiolites cf. lusitanicus, Radiolites sp., Gorjanovicia cf. endrissi, ? Sauvagesia sp., Sphaerulites sp., Durania sp., and Gyropleura sp. The rudist-bearing beds belong to the Tielongtan Group of the Tianshuihai terrane. The Turonian-? Coniacian Xiloqzung Formation (Fm.) bear the older rudists (Radiolites cf. lusitanicus, Radiolites sp., Sphaerulites sp., Durania sp.), while younger ages have been determined through microfossil analysis which, compared with the western Neotethys records, suggests an early-mid Campanian age. This allowed to ascribe the younger rudists of the collection (Gorjanovicia cf. endrissi, ? Sauvagesia sp., Gyropleura sp., Radiolites sp.) to the Dongloqzung Formation. Our data confirm that rudist-bearing facies in the Tielongtan Group extend at least up to the middle Campanian. The Aksai Chin rudist assemblage should belong to the Southwestern Asian assemblage of the Eastern Mediterranean Subprovince.

Land and snow-covered area classification method based on the background noise for satellite photon-counting laser altimeters.

The changing of snow and glaciers in mountainous areas is a sensitive signature to global warming, and satellite photon-counting laser altimeters provide an effective way to monitor the changing thickness of the snow and ice. Based on the background noise difference between snow/ice-covered areas and bare lands, we proposed a classification method to distinguish snow-covered areas from the raw photons measured by photon-counting laser altimeters in mountainous areas. First, a theoretical noise model was established considering the influence of the sunlight incident direction, the terrain slope, and reflection characteristics of different surfaces. Second, the dynamic thresholds from the proposed theoretical model and the trained thresholds were calculated and tested to classify the along-track land-cover types for the Ice, Cloud, and Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) photon-counting laser altimeter. Then, the study areas in Aksai Chin in autumn and near Pamirs plateau in winter were selected and the classification method was verified to achieve an overall accuracy of over 93% for both thresholds and areas. Our method utilized the "useless" noise photons that are enormous in quantity and easy to extract compared to the signal photons. More significantly, this method reduces the requirements of the optical images (that are used as the priori knowledge), as it can perform well even without priori knowledge.

Caring for Glaciers: Land, Animals, and Humanity in the Himalayas by Karine Gagné

Reviewed by: Caring for Glaciers: Land, Animals, and Humanity in the Himalayas by Karine Gagné Kelly D. Alley Karine Gagné, Caring for Glaciers: Land, Animals, and Humanity in the Himalayas. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019. 258 pp. Karine Gagné, Caring for Glaciers: Land, Animals, and Humanity in the Himalayas. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019. 258 pp. Karine Gagné's book, Caring for Glaciers: Land, Animals, and Humanity in the Himalayas, is a unique integrative account of generational and climate resiliency in the Himalayas that integrates local perspectives and memories of regional geopolitical history and environment, with reflections on loss. Gagné's study explores contemporary life in what science organizations, including NASA, refer to as "High Mountain Asia." This is a region of much interest to glaciologists and climate scientists as it is home to the world's largest reservoir of glaciers and snow outside the earth's polar ice sheets. Yet this is a story unlike the others focusing on the High Mountain Himalayas, where receding glaciers often overshadow the lives and values of people living there. Gagné's ethnography invites the reader into the lives of Tibetan Buddhists of Ladakh and especially into the perspectives of elderly residents. The book offers a rare window into their struggles and feelings. The political territory in which Tibetan Buddhists live is a sensitive border region between India, Pakistan, and China. Their homeland lies between the predominantly Muslim regions of the Kashmir Valley and Kargil on the one side and the disputed "Line of Actual Control," bordering the Aksai Chin glacial area of China on the other. The book's portrayal of Ladakhis, and specifically the Shamma or inhabitants of lower Ladakh, unfolds through a series of intimate accounts of the challenges elderly farmers and herders face, through their memories, stories, and adaptations to resource changes over the last 70 years. Like Kim Gutschow's (2004) book on the [End Page 227] Buddhist nuns of Ladakh, Gagné offers us a way to meet a neglected community through sustained participation in their way of life. Gagné collected the views and stories of Ladakhis while living in the region intermittently over several years. She takes us through their memories of military interventions of the past half-century and their responses to the recent out-migrations of Ladakhi youth. She describes the mounting challenges with animal herding and caretaking and agricultural sustenance as the elderly community members survive the harsh winters alone. In these stories, the elderly Shamma define ethics through reciprocity and think of reciprocal relations among family members as well as with animals and the non-human environment. Gagné refers to their approach as an ethics of care. Care frames their relations with the land, which is like a mother looking after her children. It frames their relations with their animals that provide farming assistance and knowledge of the landscape, and with glaciers that produce the water that sustains all. In the opening of the book, Gagné introduces her research assistant, Nyamgal, with a heap of respect. She tells the reader about the crucial role he played as a youth member of the community in opening up the communication pathways with elderly Ladakhis. She makes it clear that research is co-produced with others, and especially with research assistants. Nyamgal was able to elicit their emotional responses with his humanism and vulnerability. Gagné also brings in her own struggles adapting with Nyamgal to the high altitudes and frigid winters, huddled around the bokhari (wood stove) with limited food supplies. In the concluding chapter, she takes the reader on her own trek to see Father Glacier, where the high altitude makes breathing a life or death struggle. Gagné tacks between stories of the trauma of war, the harsh winters, and the stresses on elderly family members abandoned by migrating youth. In the midst of their struggles, we get an acute sense of their feelings of loneliness and loss. Elderly family members, alone in the long, harsh winters, are barely able to manage the agricultural work as they struggle to care for the animals they love so much. Desires to escape the pressures of autocratic regimes, the growing debt to outsiders, and confrontations with...

Paleocene initial indentation and early growth of the Pamir as recorded in the western Tarim Basin

It is presently unclear as to when and how the Pamir were uplifted to their current elevation, because a Cenozoic sedimentary record is lacking on the Pamir Plateau, and the Pamir domes only record metamorphism associated with crustal shortening since ∼37 Ma. Studies of the tectonic and geomorphological evolution of the Pamir in the early stages of the India–Asia continental collision are also lacking. The western Tarim Basin at the northeastern margin of the Pamir provides an ideal opportunity to investigate their formation and evolution. Four Cretaceous–Paleogene stratigraphic sections were examined in this study. From these, we infer that the West Kunlun Mountains were topographic highs during the Mesozoic that divided the adjacent Central Pamir–Tianshuihai terrane from the Tarim Basin. This paleo-topographic configuration lasted until a marine transgression occurred in the Aksai Chin and Central Pamir areas in the latest Cretaceous. Provenance analysis indicates that sediments in the western Tarim Basin were derived solely from the West Kunlun Mountains until the Paleocene. The appearance of Pamir-derived detrital zircons in Paleocene and Eocene strata of the Tarim Basin suggests that the Pamir was experiencing uplift and reached an elevation similar to, or even higher, than the West Kunlun Mountains. At that time, the sandstone composition documents a provenance change from a stable continental block to an active thrust belt of the proto-West Kunlun Mountains, indicating that the western Tarim Basin evolved from an intraplate to a foreland basin setting. During the Paleocene, alluvial fan conglomerates were deposited along the northeastern margin of the Pamir, and a thick gypsum unit began to be deposited in the Tarim Basin. All these lines of evidence indicate that the north-verging thrusting, foreland basin subsidence, uplift, and northward indentation of the Pamir began in the Paleocene (62–58 Ma).

Late Quaternary Palaeoclimate and Contemporary Moisture Source to Extreme NW India: A Review on Present Understanding and Future Perspectives

The trans-Himalayan region of NW India along with western part of Tibet, Karakoram,and Hindukush range is hosting thousands of glaciers ensuring perennial freshwater supply to the Indian subcontinent and supporting a large fraction of the global population. The peculiar physiography not only limits the entry of water enriched Indian Summer Monsoon winds to this region but also give passage to dry winds of barren desert of Taklamakan, the Aksai Chin,and western Tibet, making it a cold desert. The Quaternary glacial and interglacial phases govern the present geomorphological setup of the region, wherein the glacial process designed the basic framework, which subsequently modified by the fluvial-lacustrine-aeolian processes.Over the years, our understanding in drawing climatic inferences from the sedimentary archives has improved significantly. However, the discrepancy in chronological results among and within different dating techniques is posing a serious challenge. Since the region is experiencing cold desertic climate and being in the rain shadow zone of the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM), earlier studies show that the major source of moisture received by the Mediterranean Sea.However, the recent isotopic study of the Indus river water along with other major tributaries and minor streams, it is concluded that ISM source is equally important supplier of the moisture in the Ladakh region of NW India.

The Temporal and Spatial Variations in Lake Surface Areas in Xinjiang, China

In arid areas, lakes play important roles in sustaining the local ecology, mitigating flood hazard, and restricting economic activity of society. In this study, we used multi-temporal satellite data to study annual variations in 16 natural lakes with individual surface areas over 10 km2, categorized into six regions based on their geographical and climatic information and on their relations with climate variables. Results indicated that annual variations in lake surface areas are different across these six regions. The surface area of Kanas Lake has not obviously changed due to its typical U-shape cross section; the areas of Ulungur Lake and Jili Lake increased sharply in the 1980s and then slightly decreased; the areas of Sayram Lake, Ebinur Lake, and Bosten Lake increased and then decreased, with peaks detected in the early 2000s; the areas of Barkol Lake and Toale Culler decreased, while those of the lakes located in the Kunlun Mountains steadily increased. Lake areas also show various relationships with climate variables. There is no obvious relationship between area and climate variables in Kanas Lake due to the specific lake morphology; the areas of most lakes showed positive correlations with annual precipitation (except Sayram Lake). A negative correlation between area and temperature were detected in Ulungur Lake, Jili Lake, Barkol Lake, and Toale Culler, while positive correlations were suggested in Bosten Lake and the lakes in the Kunlun Mountains (e.g., Saligil Kollakan Lake, Aksai Chin Lake, and Urukkule Lake).

An Investigation of Ice Surface Albedo and Its Influence on the High-Altitude Lakes of the Tibetan Plateau

Most high-altitude lakes are more sensitive to global warming than the regional atmosphere. However, most existing climate models produce unrealistic surface temperatures on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) lakes, and few studies have focused on the influence of ice surface albedo on high-altitude lakes. Based on field albedo measurements, moderate resolution imaging spectrometer (MODIS) albedo products and numerical simulation, this study evaluates the ice albedo parameterization schemes in existing lake models and investigates the characteristics of the ice surface albedo in six typical TP lakes, as well as the influence of ice albedo error in the FLake model. Compared with observations, several ice albedo schemes all clearly overestimate the lake ice albedo by 0.26 to 0.66, while the average bias of MODIS albedo products is only 0.07. The MODIS-observed albedo of a snow-covered lake varies with the snow proportion, and the lake surface albedo in a snow-free state is approximately 0.15 during the frozen period. The MODIS-observed ice surface (snow-free) albedos are concentrated within the ranges of 0.14–0.16, 0.08–0.10 and 0.10–0.12 in Aksai Chin Lake, Nam Co Lake and Ngoring Lake, respectively. The simulated lake surface temperature is sensitive to variations in lake ice albedo especially in the spring and winter.

Estimation of lakes water storage and their changes on the northwestern Tibetan Plateau based on bathymetric and Landsat data and driving force analyses

Lake water storage changes in four lakes were analyzed based on in situ bathymetric survey data and Landsat images in the extremely dry and cold northwestern Tibetan Plateau region. The results indicated that Bangdag Co and Aksai Chin Lake, which are glacier-fed and closed lakes, showed decreasing trends from 1976 to 1996, then increasing trend from 1996 to 2015, during which period water storage increased by 1.24 km3 and 1.37 km3, respectively, and 65% of the water storage increase in Aksai Chin Lake during this period occurring in 2006 and 2013. Longmu Co, which is a non-glacier-fed lake, exhibited little variation from 1976 to 1996 and a slight increase of 0.1 km3 from 1996 to 2015. The precipitation, temperature and potential evaporation (Ep) trends indicated that lake shrinkage from 1976 to 1996 was attributed to less precipitation and less meltwater at lower surface air temperatures. Decreased Ep (15.5 mm/y) contributed approximately 2% and 4% to the lake expansion of Aksai Chin Lake and Bangdag Co from 2000 to 2009. Based on the assumption of equal precipitation-evaporation for the study area, glacial meltwater contributed 76.6% to the lake expansion of Bangdag Co from 2000 to 2015. Because change in lakes' water storage showed a large difference between glacier-fed lakes and non-glacier-fed lakes from 1996 to 2015 under relatively high precipitation conditions, it is suggested that glacial meltwater exerted more influence on increasing lake water storage associated with rising temperatures.