China Info - DAAD

Understanding the collision of continents:
New Sino-German Programme launched in Tibet
In August 2005, a new Sino-German programme on geoscientific research in Tibet started. Ten projects are
jointly funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the
National Natural Science Foundation of China as a first step in an envisaged long lasting cooperation. Funds
from DFG alone
comprise close to
one million Euro.
An inaugural
workshop was
followed by a first
field campaign
which lasted until
end September.
Field work concentrated
around
the Nam Co Lake
in Central Tibet
with other groups
studying areas in
western, southeastern
and also
northeastern
areas.
Last December
DAAD China Info
reported on plans for
a new initiative in
geoscientific
cooperation between
German scientists and the CAS Institute
of Tibetan Plateau Research. This
initiative aims at a better understanding
of the history and formation mechanisms
of the Tibetan Plateau, a fundamental yet
up to date not well understood question
in geoscience. An important further
aspect in this initiative is the
investigation of paleoecological and
climatic changes induced by the uplift of
this largest and highest plateau on earth.
As a matter of fact, many scientists
consider the Tibetan Plateau as the third
climatic pole of our planet.
Following a first bilateral workshop in
the summer of 2004, 12 proposals had
been submitted to Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
in early 2005, of which 10
were eventually granted. The studies to
be carried out in these projects comprise
a wide range of geoscientific methodologies
ranging from geophysical mea-
Prof. Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, DFG president, opens the second Sino-German Tibet symposium.
(Photo: Sino-German Centre for Research Promotion, Beijing)
Antje Schwalb, professor for earth
systems at Braunschweig university
surements to the investigation of ancient
and recent lake sediments and changes
in vegetation through space and time.
The inauguration of this new
programme took place on 14 August in
Beijing in the NSFC-DFG centre in the
form of a scientific
symposium. The
symposium was
opened by DFG
president Prof. Ernst-
Ludwig Winnacker
and CAS vice
president Prof. Li Jiayang. Among the
speakers were Prof. Yao Tandong, the
director of the CAS Institute of Tibetan
Plateau Research and Prof. Volker
Mosbrugger, director of the Senckenberg
Research Institute and German coordinator
of the initiative.
The symposium continued in Lhasa
from August 16 – 18. The co-operation
was detailed and future projects were
discussed. Following the workshop,
Chinese and German scientists traveled
to their field areas to take samples,
investigate structures and map the areas.
In Nam Co Lake, some 300 km NW of
Lhasa, several drillcores were taken from
the lake floor with drilling equipment and
a new DFG financed boat taken from
Germany. The scientists are very
satisfied with this first campaign. “Once
accustomed to the enormous altitude of
more than 4700 m and the sometimes
harsh weather conditions, everything
went very smoothly. We got a lot more
good sample material than we had
anticipated. Now there is much homework
to do to process the samples!” says Antje
Schwalb, professor for earth systems at
Braunschweig university.
Now additional groups will join this
initiative and DFG expects to receive more
proposals in early 2006. The next bilateral
workshop is planned for April, for which
the Chinese scientists will be invited to
Ettal monastery near the Zugspitze,
Germany’s highest mountain. In addition,
it was agreed that a coordinated research
programme will have to be established to
enable reliable planning of the projects to
come. This might start as early as 2007. It
will now be the task of the involved
funding agencies to identify a scheme
under which such a programme can be
run. (Sören B. Dürr,
DFG head office, Bonn)
10 DAAD China Info 2/2005