Academic literature on the topic 'Zanskar (India)'
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Journal articles on the topic "Zanskar (India)"
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SEARLE, MIKE, RICHARD I. CORFIELD, BEN STEPHENSON, and JOE MCCARRON. "Structure of the North Indian continental margin in the Ladakh–Zanskar Himalayas: implications for the timing of obduction of the Spontang ophiolite, India–Asia collision and deformation events in the Himalaya." Geological Magazine 134, no. 3 (May 1997): 297–316. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0016756897006857.
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The collision of India and Asia can be defined as a process that started with the closing of the Tethyan ocean that, during Mesozoic and early Tertiary times, separated the two continental plates. Following initial contact of Indian and Asian continental crust, the Indian plate continued its northward drift into Asia, a process which continues to this day. In the Ladakh–Zanskar Himalaya the youngest marine sediments, both in the Indus suture zone and along the northern continental margin of India, are lowermost Eocene Nummulitic limestones dated at ∼54 Ma. Along the north Indian shelf margin, southwest-facing folded Palaeocene–Lower Eocene shallow-marine limestones unconformably overlie highly deformed Mesozoic shelf carbonates and allochthonous Upper Cretaceous shales, indicating an initial deformation event during the latest Cretaceous–early Palaeocene, corresponding with the timing of obduction of the Spontang ophiolite onto the Indian margin. It is suggested here that all the ophiolites from Oman, along western Pakistan (Bela, Muslim Bagh, Zhob and Waziristan) to the Spontang and Amlang-la ophiolites in the Himalaya were obducted during the late Cretaceous and earliest Palaeocene, prior to the closing of Tethys.The major phase of crustal shortening followed the India–Asia collision producing spectacular folds and thrusts across the Zanskar range. A new structural profile across the Indian continental margin along the Zanskar River gorge is presented here. Four main units are separated by major detachments including both normal faults (e.g. Zanskar, Karsha Detachments), southwest-directed thrusts reactivated as northeast-directed normal faults (e.g. Zangla Detachment), breakback thrusts (e.g. Photoksar Thrust) and late Tertiary backthrusts (e.g. Zanskar Backthrust). The normal faults place younger rocks onto older and separate two units, both showing compressional tectonics, but have no net crustal extension across them. Rather, they are related to rapid exhumation of the structurally lower, middle and deep crustal metamorphic rocks of the High Himalaya along the footwall of the Zanskar Detachment. The backthrusting affects the northern margin of the Zanskar shelf and the entire Indus suture zone, including the mid-Eocene–Miocene post-collisional fluvial and lacustrine molasse sediments (Indus Group), and therefore must be Pliocene–Pleistocene in age. Minimum amounts of crustal shortening across the Indian continental margin are 150–170 km although extreme ductile folding makes any balancing exercise questionable.
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Burbank, Douglas W., and Monique B. Fort. "Bedrock Control on Glacial Limits: Examples from the Ladakh and Zanskar Ranges, North-Western Himalaya, India." Journal of Glaciology 31, no. 108 (1985): 143–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022143000006389.
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AbstractIn the north-western Himalaya, the distribution of modem glaciers and snowlines in the Ladakh and Zanskar Ranges adjacent to the Indus River valley suggests comparable climatic conditions prevail in the two ranges. Similarly, the positions of terminal moraines and reconstructed equilibrium-line altitudes (ELAs) indicate equivalent magnitudes of Neoglacial and Late Glacial advances in both ranges. However, the terminal positions and reconstructed ELAs from the late Pleistocene maximum advances are at least 400 m lower in the Ladakh Range than in the nearby Zanskar Range. These differences do not appear to reflect either climatic or tectonic controls. Rather, they are caused by an unusual bedrock configuration in the Zanskar Range, where vertical strata of indurated sandstones and conglomerates, and narrow steep-walled canyons cut through them, created a bulwark that effectively precluded significant down-valley advance. Without recognition of this physical impedance to glacial advance, uncritical reconstructions would greatly overestimate the altitude of the ELA in the Zanskar Range.
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Burbank, Douglas W., and Monique B. Fort. "Bedrock Control on Glacial Limits: Examples from the Ladakh and Zanskar Ranges, North-Western Himalaya, India." Journal of Glaciology 31, no. 108 (1985): 143–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.3189/s0022143000006389.
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AbstractIn the north-western Himalaya, the distribution of modem glaciers and snowlines in the Ladakh and Zanskar Ranges adjacent to the Indus River valley suggests comparable climatic conditions prevail in the two ranges. Similarly, the positions of terminal moraines and reconstructed equilibrium-line altitudes (ELAs) indicate equivalent magnitudes of Neoglacial and Late Glacial advances in both ranges. However, the terminal positions and reconstructed ELAs from the late Pleistocene maximum advances are at least 400 m lower in the Ladakh Range than in the nearby Zanskar Range. These differences do not appear to reflect either climatic or tectonic controls. Rather, they are caused by an unusual bedrock configuration in the Zanskar Range, where vertical strata of indurated sandstones and conglomerates, and narrow steep-walled canyons cut through them, created a bulwark that effectively precluded significant down-valley advance. Without recognition of this physical impedance to glacial advance, uncritical reconstructions would greatly overestimate the altitude of the ELA in the Zanskar Range.
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Polosmak, N. V., M. A. Shah, and L. P. Kundo. "PETROGLYPHS OF ZANSKAR, INDIA: FINDINGS OF THE 2016 SEASON." Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 46, no. 2 (June 29, 2018): 60–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.17746/1563-0110.2018.46.2.060-067.
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This article introduces new petroglyphs found in 2016 by the Russian-Indian expedition in Zanskar, India. For the fi rst time in this region, we discovered images unilaterally pecked out on small rectangular plates at abandoned Buddhist sanctuaries. Unlike tens of thousands of famous images from Ladakh and Zanskar, these are examples of mobile art, i.e., they could be moved from one place to another. They show scenes of fi ghting wild yaks, a hunter on horseback accompanied by a dog, and a Buddhist stupa. Especially interesting are several kindred scenes reproducing fi ghts between male yaks, which occur in the fall, during the rut. Images realistically and accurately convey a tense atmosphere of rivalry. The image of a horse is unusual. The animal is decorated with a breast tassel and a head plume or sheathed forelock, marking the horseman’s high rank and setting the representation apart from other known images of horses in the petroglyphic art of Ladakh and Zanskar. Very important is the archaic type of stupa, before which the yaks are fi ghting. It provides one of the clues for dating the whole composition, since such types of stupas were built from the 1st century BC onwards. It is proposed that the newly found petroglyphs represent a hitherto unknown tradition of using small specially prepared stone plates.
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Polosmak, N. V., M. A. Shah, and L. P. Kundo. "Petroglyphs of Zanskar, India: Findings of the 2016 Season." Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia (Russian-language). 46, no. 2 (2018): 60–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.17746/1563-0102.2018.46.2.060-067.
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Patel, R. C., Sandeep Singh, A. Asokan, R. M. Manickavasagam, and A. K. Jain. "Extensional tectonics in the Himalayan orogen, Zanskar, NW India." Geological Society, London, Special Publications 74, no. 1 (1993): 445–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1144/gsl.sp.1993.074.01.30.
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Ali, Sheikh Nawaz, Shailesh Agrawal, Anupam Sharma, Binita Phartiyal, Paulramasamy Morthekai, Pawan Govil, Ravi Bhushan, Shazi Farooqui, Partha Sarathi Jena, and Ajay Shivam. "Holocene hydroclimatic variability in the Zanskar Valley, Northwestern Himalaya, India." Quaternary Research 97 (April 30, 2020): 140–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/qua.2020.22.
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AbstractA 1.3-m-long sediment core from the Penzi-la pass, Zanskar Valley, provides a record of hydroclimatic conditions and abrupt climate changes over short time scales since the mid-Holocene. These climatic changes of centennial time scale are crucial to understanding the hydroclimatic variability in northwestern (NW) Himalaya. Relatively higher δ13C values complemented by total organic carbon, loss on ignition, grain size parameters, and lower Rubidium/Strontium ratios during the Late Northgrippian imply that the area had a dry climate during the period from ~6200–4500 cal yr BP. Subsequently, a relatively stable hydroclimatic environment was experienced between ~4500 and 3400 cal yr BP. After ~3400 cal yr BP the multiproxy data show gradual strengthening of hydroclimatic conditions, however, this trend is interrupted by high-amplitude abrupt reversals (dry events) with a stepwise decreasing intensity at ~3300, 2600, 1700, and 400 cal yr BP. The two most important climatic events of the last millennia (i.e., Medieval Climate Anomaly and the Little Ice Age) were also recorded from the sedimentary archive. Overall, our data show a progressive increase in the moisture availability in the Zanskar Valley and are in agreement with the late Holocene climatic trends of central and western Himalaya.
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Maheshwari, Aishwarya, A. Arun Kumar, and Sambandam Sathyakumar. "Assessment of changes over a decade in the patterns of livestock depredation by the Himalayan Brown Bear in Ladakh, India." Journal of Threatened Taxa 13, no. 7 (June 26, 2021): 18695–702. http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/jott.7177.13.7.18695-18702.
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Conflicts between large carnivores and shepherds constitute a major socio-ecological concern across the Himalaya and affects community attitudes and tolerance toward carnivores. We assessed the extent and intensity of Human-Brown Bear interactions in the same villages of Zanskar and Suru Valleys, Ladakh, in the Indian Trans-Himalaya during two time periods (2001–2003 and 2009–2012) through field and questionnaire surveys. During 2001–2003, 180 families of 32 villages in Zanskar, and 232 families of 49 villages in Suru were interviewed, and during 2009–2012, 145 families of 23 villages in Zanskar and 115 families of 33 villages in Suru were interviewed. Overall, 475 (119/year) and 454 (151/year) heads of livestock were reportedly killed by Brown Bears. The surveys of 2009–2012 revealed that livestock predation in ‘doksas’ (summer grazing camps) was higher (68 %) compared to the surveys carried out during 2001–2003 (42 %). The increased livestock depredation in doksas might be due to the extended stay and use of pastures by the local communities during spring and autumn. Damage to property in the form of breaking open of doors and windows by Brown Bear were reported during both the surveys. Economic losses and declining tolerance of people may trigger retaliatory killings of Brown Bear in Ladakh. We recommend compensation for livestock loss and improved husbandry practices in the conflict zones for bear-human coexistence.
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Corfield, R. I., A. B. Watts, and M. P. Searle. "Subsidence history of the north Indian continental margin, Zanskar–Ladakh Himalaya, NW India." Journal of the Geological Society 162, no. 1 (January 2005): 135–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1144/0016-764903-162.
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Lee, Richard V., Mohamud Daya, Greta Flickinger, and Geshe Ngawang Jangchup. "Tuberculin Testing in a Remote Area of Zanskar Ladakh, India." Journal of Travel Medicine 8, no. 3 (March 8, 2006): 152–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.2310/7060.2001.24465.
Full textDissertations / Theses on the topic "Zanskar (India)"
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Byrne, Martin Edward. "Glacier Monitoring in Ladakh and Zanskar, northwestern India." The University of Montana, 2009. http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-06152009-155836/.
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Glaciers in the Himalaya are often heavily covered with supraglacial debris, making them difficult to study with remotely-sensed imagery alone. Various methods such as band ratios can be used effectively to map clean-ice glaciers; however, a thicker layer of debris often makes it impossible to distinguish between supraglacial debris and the surrounding terrain. Previously, a morphometric approach employing an ASTER-derived digital elevation model (DEM) has been used to map glaciers in the Khumbu Himal and the Tien Shan. This project aims first to test the ability of the morphometric procedure to map small glaciers; second, to use the morphometric approach to map glaciers in Ladakh; and third, to use Landsat and ASTER data and GPS and field measurements to monitor glacier change in Ladakh over the past four decades. Field work was carried out in the summers of 2007 and 2008. For clean ice, a ratio of shortwave infrared (SWIR, 1.6-1.7 µm) and near infrared (NIR, 0.76-0.86 µm) bands from the ASTER dataset was used to distinguish snow and ice. For debris-covered glaciers, morphometric features such as slope, derived from a DEM, were combined with thermal imagery and supervised classifiers to map glacial margins. The method is promising for large glaciers, although problems occurred in the distal and lateral parts and in the forefield of the glaciers. The morphometric approach was inadequate for mapping small glaciers, due to a paucity of unique topographic features on the glaciers which can be used to distinguish them from the surrounding terrain. A multi-temporal analysis of three glaciers in Ladakh found that two of them have recededone since at least the mid-1970s, the other since at least 2000while a third glacier, Parkachik Glacier, seemed to have retreated in the 1980s, only to advance in the 1990s and early 2000s. However, from 2004-2008 it showed only negligible change making its current status difficult to determine without further monitoring. The glacier outlines derived during this project will be added to the Global Land Ice Measurements from Space (GLIMS) database. In testing the limits of the morphometric approach, the thesis has provided a valuable contribution to the present literature and knowledge-base regarding the mapping of debris-covered glaciers.
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Walker, James David. "The structure and metamorphic evolution of the High Himalayan Slab in SE Zanskar and NW Lahaul." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1998. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:fc8b8fd3-e155-4f2f-9256-3667c2b31f4f.
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This thesis attempts to unravel the complex thermal and structural history of part of the High Himalayan Slab in NW India and combines reconnaissance-style field structural mapping of an area covering ~10,000 km2 with petrography, microstructural analysis, thermobarometry and geochronology techniques. The results of this work show that the oldest protoliths of the High Himalayan Slab are at least Cambrian in age and that they may have experienced a major pre-Himalayan metamorphism at c.500 Ma. The youngest protoliths are Mesozoic in age (the Tandi Group) and demonstrate that the High Himalayan Slab represents the metamorphosed equivalents of the Tibetan Sedimentary Series. Metamorphism was achieved via substantial crustal shortening and thickening following the India-Asia collision at 50-54 Ma ago. Phase relationships demonstrate that metamorphism was a regional Barrovian-type event associated with the growth of biotite-, garnet-, staurolite-, kyanite- and sillimanite-bearing assemblages in metapelites. Quantitative thermobarometry demonstrates that near-peak conditions of c.6-8 kbar and 550-650°C were attained in the deepest exposed levels. Growth of metamorphic assemblages was underway by at least 30 Ma, as indicated by U-Pb ages of metamorphic monazites. Exhumation of the High Himalayan Slab was achieved through a combination of extensional unroofing along major detachments (namely the Zanskar Shear Zone), thermal doming, thrusting along the Main Central Thrust and surface erosion. Exhumation is closely associated with the growth of sillimanite- and cordierite-bearing assemblages in pelites and the generation and emplacement of crustal melt leucogranites in the upper parts of the slab. U-Pb dating of accessory phases from one of the crustal melt leucogranites (the Gumburanjon leucogranite) constrains its crystallisation and emplacement age at c.21-22 Ma. This is only slightly older than its 40Ar/39Ar muscovite and biotite cooling ages of c.20-21 Ma, which is attributed to the emplacement of the Gumburanjon leucogranite into the immediate footwall of the ZSZ. Field and geochronological data therefore support a strong temporal and spatial relationship between upper crustal melting and extension in a convergent orogen.
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Hedrick, Kathryn. "Towards defining the transition in style and timing of Quaternary glaciation between the monsoon-influenced Greater Himalaya and the semi-arid Transhimalaya of Northern India." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1267115794.
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Corfield, Richard I. "Origin and emplacement of the Spontang ophiolite and crustal shortening processes in the Ladakh-Zanskar Himalaya, NW India." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.298779.
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Stahr, Donald William III. "Kinematic evolution, metamorphism, and exhumation of the Greater Himalayan Series, Sutlej River and Zanskar regions of NW India." Diss., Virginia Tech, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/23081.
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The Himalayan orogen provides a natural laboratory to test models of orogenic development due to large-scale continental collision. The Greater Himalayan Series (GHS), a lithotectonic unit continuous along the entire length of the belt, comprises the metamorphic core of the Himalayan orogen and underlies the highest topography. GHS rocks are exposed as a moderately north-dipping slab bounded below by the Main Central Thrust (MCT) and above by the South Tibetan Detachment System (STDS) of normal faults. Coeval reverse- and normal-sense motion on the crustal-scale MCT and STDS ductile shear zones allows the GHS to be modeled as an extruded wedge or channel of mid-crustal material. Due to this unique tectonic setting, the deformation path of rocks within the bounding shear zones and throughout the core of the GHS profoundly influences the efficiency of extrusion and exhumation processes. Attempts to quantify GHS deformation and metamorphic evolution have provided significant insight into Himalayan orogenic development, but these structural and petrologic studies are often conducted in isolation. Penetrative deformation fabrics developed under mid-upper amphibolite facies conditions within the GHS argue that deformation and metamorphism were coupled, and this should be considered in studies aimed at quantifying GHS teconometamorphic evolution.This work focuses on two projects related to the coupled deformation, thermal and metamorphic evolution during extrusion and exhumation of the GHS, focused on the lower and upper margins of the slab. A detailed examination of the P--T history of a schist collected from within the MCT zone of the Sutlej River, NW India, provides insight into the path experienced by these rocks as they traveled through the crust in response to the extreme shortening related to India-Asia collision. Combined forward thermodynamic and diffusion modeling indicates compositional zoning preserved in garnet has remained unmodified since growth and can be related directly to the P--T--X evolution of rocks from this zone. Classic porphyroblast--matrix relationships coupled with the above models provide a structural framework within which to interpret the microstructures and provide additional constraints on the relative timing of metamorphic and deformation events.
A combined microstructural and quartz petrofabric study of rocks from the highest structural levels of the GHS in the Zanskar region was completed. This work provides the first quantitative estimate of temperatures attending normal-sense shearing along the Zanskar Shear Zone, the westernmost strand of the STDS. Results indicate penetrative top-N (extensional) deformation occurred at elevated temperatures and resulted in the telescoping of isothermal surfaces present during shearing and extrusion of GHS rocks. Simple geometric models invoking heterogeneous simple shear parallel to the overlying detachment require dip-slip displacement magnitudes on the order of 15--40 km, identical to estimates derived from nearby barometric analyses.
Finally, focus is given to the rotational behavior of rigid inclusions suspended in a flowing viscous matrix from a theoretical perspective. Predictions of clast rotational behavior have been used to construct several kinematic vorticity estimation techniques that have become widely adopted for quantitative studies of naturally deformed rocks. Despite the popularity of the techniques, however, basic questions regarding clast-based analyses remain open. Therefore a numerical model was constructed and a systematic investigation of 2- and 3D clasts suspended in steady and non-steady plane-strain flows was undertaken to determine likely sources of error and the intrinsic strengths and limitations of the techniques.
Ph. D.
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Taylor, Peter James. "The Quaternary glacial history of the Zanskar Range, north-west Indian Himalaya." Thesis, University of Bedfordshire, 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10547/606075.
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Palaeoglacier margins from the Zanskar Range of the north-western Indian Himalaya are reconstructed through geomorphological mapping and sedimentology. These are dated ilsing Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) techniques on quartz extracted from related fluvioglacial and lacustrine deposits. A glaciated palaeosurface with broad, gentle slopes >280m above river level and high grade metamorphic erratics represents the oldest and most extensive glaciation, the Chandra Stage. This formed an ice-cap with its ice-shed to the south over the High Himalaya. A change from broad glacial troughs to narrow V -shaped gorges along with large subdued moraine ridges and drift/erratic limits defines an extensive valley glaciation, the Batal Stage, with its maximum close to -78.0±12.3ka BP (Oxygen Isotope Stage (OIS) 4). Distinct sets of moraine ridges represent a less extensive glaciation, the Kulti Stage, which is dated to shortly after the global Last Glacial Maximum (OIS 2) and a minor advance, the Sonapani, is represented by sharp crested moraine ridges < 2km from current ice bodies. The change in glacier extent and style from the Chandra Stage to the later glaciations may be related to uplift of more southerly ranges blocking monsoon precipitation and incision of the landscape such that ice reached lower altitudes over shorter horizontal distances. Batal and Kulti Stage Glacier Elevation Indexes (GEls) calculated for this and adjacent areas increase from south-west to the north-east, but decrease again towards the Indus valley, reflecting attenuation of the south-westerly monsoon and possible channelling of westerly depressions along the broad upper Indus valley. GEl values were depressed by ~500m during the Batal Stage and -300m during the Kulti Stage. Six new OSL age estimates from the Zanskar Range greatly improve the glacial chronology of the north-west Himalaya and reinforce the emerging asynchrony between this region and the Central and Eastern Himalaya, which experienced its maximum glaciation during OIS 2 rather than OIS 4. Improved glacier mass balance data, palaeoclimatic proxy data for the summer monsoon and particularly the winter westerlies, and numerical age estimates from Himalayan glaciers are required to explain this asynchronous maximum.
Books on the topic "Zanskar (India)"
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Schettler, Margret. Kashmir, Ladakh & Zanskar: A travel survival kit. 3rd ed. Hawthorn, Vic, Australia: Lonely Planet, 1989.
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Chabloz, Philippe. Ladakh-Zanskar: Espace et lumière des hautes vallées. Genève, Suisse: Editions Olizane, 1999.
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Dézes, Pierre. Tectonic and metamorphic evolution of the Central Himalayan Domain in southeast Zanskar (Kashmir, India). Lausanne, Suisse: Université de Lausanne, 1999.
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Peng, Shanchi. Cambrian trilobites from the Parahio and Zanskar valleys, Indian Himalaya. Lawrence, KS: The Paleontological Society, 2009.
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author, Lovell-Hoare Max, ed. Kashmir: Jammu, Kashmir Valley, Ladakh, Zanskar : the Bradt trave guide. 2014.
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Schettler, Rolf, and Margaret Schettler. Lonely Planet Kashmir Ladakh and Zanskar (Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit). 3rd ed. Lonely Planet, 1989.
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Searle, Mike. Colliding Continents. Oxford University Press, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199653003.001.0001.
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The Himalaya is the greatest mountain range on Earth: the highest, longest, youngest, the most tectonically active, and the most spectacular of all. Unimaginable geological forces created these spectacular peaks. Indeed, the crash of the Indian plate into Asia is the biggest known collision in geological history, giving birth to the Himalaya and Karakoram, one of the most remote and savage places on Earth. In this beautifully illustrated book, featuring spectacular color photographs throughout, one of the most experienced field geologists of our time presents a rich account of the geological forces that were involved in creating these monumental ranges. Over three decades, Mike Searle has transformed our understanding of this vast region. To gather his vital geological evidence, he has had to deploy his superb skills as a mountaineer, spending weeks at time in remote and dangerous locations. Searle weaves his own first-hand tales of discovery with an engaging explanation of the processes that formed these impressive peaks. His narrative roughly follows his career, from his early studies in the north west Himalaya of Ladakh, Zanskar and Kashmir, through several expeditions to the Karakoram ranges (including climbs on K2, Masherbrum, and the Trango Towers, and the crossing of Snow Lake, the world's largest ice cap outside polar regions), to his later explorations around Everest, Makalu, Sikkim and in Tibet and South East Asia. The book offers a fascinating first-hand account of a major geologist at work-the arduous labor, the eureka moments, and the days of sheer beauty, such as his trek to Kathmandu, over seven days through magnificent rhododendron forests ablaze in pinks, reds and white and through patches of bamboo jungle with hanging mosses. Filled with satellite images, aerial views, and the author's own photographs of expeditions, Colliding Continents offers a vivid account of the origins and present state of the greatest mountain range on Earth.
Book chapters on the topic "Zanskar (India)"
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Searle, Mike. "Frozen Rivers and Fault Lines." In Colliding Continents. Oxford University Press, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199653003.003.0010.
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After seven summer field seasons working in the north-western Himalaya in India, I had heard of a winter trade route that must rank as one of the most outlandish journeys in the Himalaya. The largely Buddhist Kingdoms of Ladakh and Zanskar are high, arid, mountainous lands to the north of the Greater Himalayan Range and in the rain shadow of the summer monsoon. Whereas the southern slopes of the Himalaya range from dense sub-tropical jungles and bamboo forests to rhododendron woods and magnificent alpine pastures carpeted in spring flowers, the barren icy lands to the north are the realm of the snow leopard, the yak, and the golden eagles and lammergeier vultures that soar overhead. The Zanskar Valley lies immediately north-east of the 6–7,000-metre-high peaks of the Himalayan crest and has about thirty permanent settlements, including about ten Buddhist monasteries. I had seen the Zanskar Ranges from the summit of White Sail in Kulu and later spent four summer seasons mapping the geology along the main trekking routes. In summer, trekking routes cross the Himalaya westwards to Kashmir, southwards to Himachal Pradesh, and northwards to Leh, the ancient capital of Ladakh. Winter snows close the Zanskar Valley from the outside world for up to six months a year when temperatures plummet to minus 38oC. Central Zanskar is a large blank on the map, virtually inaccessible, with steepsided jagged limestone mountains and deep canyons. The Zanskar River carves a fantastic gorge through this mountain range and for only a few weeks in the middle of winter the river freezes. The Chaddur, the walk along the frozen Zanskar River, takes about ten to twelve days from Zanskar to the Indus Valley and, in winter time, was the only way in or out before the road to Kargil was constructed. I mentioned this winter trek to Ben Stephenson during our summer fieldwork in Kishtwar and he stopped suddenly, turned around, and said ‘Mike we just have to do this trek!’ So the idea of a winter journey into Zanskar was born, and four of us set off from Oxford in January 1995.
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Searle, Mike. "Continents in Collision: Kashmir, Ladakh, Zanskar." In Colliding Continents. Oxford University Press, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199653003.003.0007.
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To understand how the Himalaya were formed it seemed logical to start at the actual zone of plate collision, the Indus suture zone. Most of this collision zone runs across southern Tibet, which in the 1970s was almost impossible to travel through. Following Mao Tse-tung’s Red Army’s invasion and occupation of Tibet in October 1950, that region had remained firmly closed to all foreigners. In the western Himalaya the Indus suture zone runs right across the northernmost province of Ladakh. Ladakh used to be a part of southwestern Tibet before the British annexed it during the Raj. Leh, the ancient capital of Ladakh at 3,500 metres in the Indus Valley, was the final outpost of British India before the great trans-Himalayan barrier of the Karakoram Range. Only the Nubra Valley and the Tangtse Valley north of Leh were beyond the Indus, and these valleys led directly up to the desolate high plateau of Tibet. Leh was a major caravan route and a crossroads of high Asia, with double-humped dromedary camel caravans coming south from the Silk Route towns of Yarkhand and Khotan; Kashmiris and Baltis came from the west and Indian traders from the Hindu regions of Himachal and Chamba to the south. Ladakh, Zanskar, and Zangla were three ancient Himalayan kingdoms ruled by a Giapo, or King, each from a palace that resembled a small version of the Potala Palace in Lhasa. In 1978, when we were climbing in the mountains of Kulu, I had looked from our high summits across to the desert mountains of Lahoul and Zanskar, north of the main Himalayan watershed. Here, in the ancient Buddhist kingdoms of Zanskar and Ladakh lay wave upon wave of unexplored and unclimbed mountains. They lay north of the monsoon limits and in the rain shadow of the main Himalaya, so the vegetation was sparse, and the geology was laid bare. Flying north from Delhi, or east from Kashmir into Leh, the views were simply mesmerizing.
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Searle, Mike. "Around the Bend: Nanga Parbat, Namche Barwa." In Colliding Continents. Oxford University Press, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199653003.003.0015.
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From the geological mapping, structural, and metamorphic investigations along the main Himalayan Range from Zanskar in the west through the Himachal Pradesh and Kumaon regions of India and along the whole of Nepal to Sikkim, a similar story was emerging. The overall structure and distribution of metamorphic rocks and granites was remarkably similar from one geological profile to the next. The Lesser Himalaya, above the Main Boundary Thrust was composed of generally older sedimentary and igneous rocks, unaffected by the young Tertiary metamorphism. Travelling north towards the high peaks, the inverted metamorphism along the Main Central Thrust marked the lower boundary of the Tertiary metamorphic rocks formed as a result of the India–Asia collision. The large Himalayan granites, many forming the highest peaks, lay towards the upper boundary of the ‘Greater Himalayan sequence’. North of this, the sedimentary rocks of the Tethyan Himalaya crop out above the low-angle normal fault, the South Tibetan Detachment. The northern ranges of the Himalaya comprise the sedimentary rocks of the northern margin of India. The two corner regions of the Himalaya, however, appeared to be somewhat different. The Indian plate has two major syntaxes, where the structural grain of the mountains swings around through ninety degrees: the western syntaxis, centred on the mountain of Nanga Parbat in Pakistan, and the eastern syntaxis, centred on the mountain of Namche Barwa in south-east Tibet. Nanga Parbat (8,125 m) is a huge mountain massif at the north-western end of the great Himalayan chain. It is most prominent seen from the Indus Valley and the hills of Kohistan to the west, where it seems to stand in glorious isolation, ringed by the deep gorges carved by the Indus and Astor Rivers, before the great wall of snowy peaks forming the Karakoram to the north.
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Searle, Mike. "The Dreaming Spires of the Karakoram." In Colliding Continents. Oxford University Press, 2013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199653003.003.0008.
Full textAbstract:
Travelling by bus across the northern areas of Pakistan on my way back to England after our first climbing expedition to Kulu in 1978, I remember it being hot, dry, and dusty down in the plains of the Peshawar basin, but the distant sight of glinting snowfields way to the north of Swat and Gilgit heralded the mightiest mountain range of them all. The Karakoram Range has the highest concentration of mountains over 7,000 metres anywhere in the world including K2, at 8,614 metres high the second highest peak, and three other mountains which are over 8 kilometres above sea level (Broad Peak 8,047 m, Gasherbrum II 8,034 m, Gasherbrum I also called Hidden Peak, 8,068 m). Literally hundreds of peaks over 6 kilometres high are clustered along the length and breadth of the range, which spans the borders of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Chinese province of Xinjiang, also just clipping the far northern Indian state of Ladakh. The Karakoram Range contains the longest continental glaciers outside the polar regions, the four longest being the Siachen (73 km long), and the Hispar, Biafo, and Baltoro Glaciers, all about 60 km long. In the middle of the Karakoram is a huge continental icecap, Snow Lake or the Lukpe-lawa, surrounded by glistening, improbably steep and high granite spires. The mountains here leap out of the glacier like the wildly imaginative lines of a child’s drawing. During the later stages of the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India, the chaotic array of contours and mountain ranges around the north-western Himalaya was surveyed. The main Himalayan Ranges extend west into the Zanskar and Kashmir regions, but to the north of the Indus River lie another whole series of ranges, the Ladakh Range (the ‘Transhimalaya’ of Sven Hedin, the greatest of all Tibetan explorers), the Karakoram, and the Pamir Ranges. In 1856, Colonel T. G. Montgomery first spied the great peaks bordering the Baltoro Glacier from the distant Kashmir foothills over 150 km away. Two giants stood above the rest, K1 (Masherbrum) and K2. Everest had just been computed as the highest mountain at 29,002 feet (8,829 m), later increased to its now widely accepted height of 29,064 feet (8,848 m).
Conference papers on the topic "Zanskar (India)"
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Orr, Elizabeth. "QUATERNARY GLACIATION OF STOK, NORTHERN ZANSKAR RANGE, TRANSHIMALAYA, NORTHERN INDIA." In 50th Annual GSA North-Central Section Meeting. Geological Society of America, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/abs/2016nc-275093.
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Jonell, Tara N., Andrew Carter, Hella Wittmann, Philipp Boning, and Peter D. Clift. "APPLICATION OF SEDIMENT PROVENANCE TECHNIQUES IN THE HIMALAYAN RAIN SHADOW: FOCUSED DENUDATION AND GLACIAL CONTRIBUTIONS IN THE ZANSKAR RIVER, NORTHWEST INDIA." In 50th Annual GSA South-Central Section Meeting. Geological Society of America, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/abs/2016sc-273320.
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