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Plateau moving north-east

XI'NING (CHINA): The Qinghai-Tibet plateau, dubbed ``the roof of the world'', is moving north-east at seven to 30 millimetres a year, a Chinese researcher has announced. ``The plateau is moving because it's being pushed by the Indian plate,'' said Dr. Tan Kai, a researcher with China Seismological Bureau who is collecting data for a Global Positioning System (GPS) survey in the towering Kunlun Mountains in Golmud city of northwest China's Qinghai province. Dr. Tan and his colleagues have found that Lhasa, on the southern end of the plateau, is moving 30 mm a year north-east at an angle of 38 degrees. The Kunlun mountains in the central plateau is moving 21 mm a year. 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 seven to 30 mm a year on an average,'' Mr. Tan said. ``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.''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. The conclusion was echoed by Fang , a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research. A collision between the Indian plate and the Eurasia continent plate 40 million years ago shaped the Qinghai-Tibet plateau and its surrounding geological features, said Mr. Fang. — Xinhua

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