Tibet 2009

Lhasa block

In April to early May 2009, Guillaume Dupont-Nivet (Utrecht), Pete Lippert (Santa Cruz) and I went on a short but very productive and inspirational fieldtrip to Tibet. It was my first time on the roof of the world and it made an enormous impression! Aim of the trip was to constrain the late Cretaceous to Eocene paleolatitudinal position of the Lhasa terrain by paleomagnetism, which is considered to be the southernmost part of Eurasia in the Indo-Asia collision history. As such is it an essential element in the most impressive collision history of the geological record, and determines largely the amount and distribution of shortening in this orogen. Apparently we are not the first to try this, cuz we saw holes everywhere, but so far noone published recently on ths subject. We'll see :) Below the usual picture collection after one of my fieldtrips!

The crew

Guillaume "I hope there's not too much snow...you better bring thermal underwear, cuz it is likely only just above freezing temperature during the daytime" Dupont-Nivet
University of Utrecht, the Netherlands

Pete "if you don't have a down jacket, this is the time to get one,
cuz you'll practically live in it!" Lippert
University of Santa Cruz, California

"OK, so I'll spend 750 bucks on arctic gear so I won't freeze my butt off" me...

Norbu "what do you mean 'freezing temperatures'?? It's gonna be 25 C and sunny in May here!" the excellent guide and translator

Manbearpig, half man, half bear, half pig

And an excellent driver :)

Well, at least I saw some snow...

Let's get started...

First two days we spent in Lhasa, capital of Tibet, getting used to the altitude of 4000 meters...which means that walking up the stairs makes you pant like an old drunk

(hey, at least here we can blame it on the altitude)

Palace-temple of the Dalai Lama...at present a museum. Opposite on the square in front of this palace there's a Chinese monument celebrating 'the liberation of Tibet' in '59...