Chinese scientists have uncovered the world’s oldest verified amber in the northwestern Xinjiang region, revealing that ancient plants were producing protective resin 385 million years ago, long before most animal groups had emerged to damage them. The amber – discovered in coal seams in West Junggar, part of an ancient zone where tectonic plates collided, grew and merged – pushes back the record by roughly 65 million years and challenges some long-held assumptions about the origins of plant...
The committee comprises Dr. C.P. Rajendran, geologist; Dr. Vishnudas, ecologist; Dr. P. Pugazhendi, Chief Wildlife Warden, Kerala; the Secretary, Public Works Department; and the Secretary, Revenue and Disaster Management Department (convenor)
Chinese geologists have determined that an active fault line directly beneath the world’s largest hydropower project poses a threat to the mega dam now being built on Tibet’s Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra) River. The scientists said a fracture in the Earth’s crust in the eastern Himalayan region would significantly affect the integrity of the massive hydropower project’s infrastructure. In a paper published last month in the Chinese-language journal Sedimentary Geology and Tethyan Geology,...