Xi’ning, August 16 – The Tibet plateau, also known as “roof of the world”, is moving northward and eastward at seven to 30 millimetres a year, a Chinese researcher said here Tuesday.
“The plateau is moving because it’s being pushed by the Indian plate,” Tan Kai, a researcher with China Seismological Bureau, was quoted by Xinhua as saying.
Tan and his colleagues found through a survey that Lhasa, on the southern end of the Tibet or Qinghai plateau, is moving 30 mm a year northeast at an angle of 38 degrees.
They said the Kunlun Mountains in the central plateau is moving 21 mm a year at 61 degrees while the Qilian Mountains further north is moving between seven and 14 mm a year, at an angle of 80 degrees.
“Which means the entire plateau is moving 7 to 30 mm a year on average,” Tan told Xinhua. “Such moves are barely noticeable and will not change the Chinese continental plate any time soon. But they’re still significant from the geological point of view.”
Results of the surveys will help scientists study the formation and evolution of the plateau and evaluate the region’s risk of earthquake and other geological disasters.
A collision between the Indian Plate and the Eurasia Continent Plate 40 million years ago shaped the Tibet Plateau and its surrounding geological features, said a researcher.
As the two plates of the earth’s crust still collide, the plateau is moving north by more than 20 mm and is growing taller by several mm a year, too, he said.
