Second Investigation Launched on Glacier Resources

A Survey on China's Glacier Resources and their Changes was officially launched in Beijing on May 22, marking the second investigation of this kind into a systematic, sustainable and comprehensive phase. Experts say that the project will greatly improve the monitoring and assessing methods on the changes of the glaciers and their influence on the supply of water resources in Chinese hinterland, enhancing the capability to prevent natural disaster, providing scientific grounds for the country's decision makers when planning sustainable exploitation of the water resources, disaster reduction and development of tourism in Western China.

The compiling work of Chinese Glacier Inventory was started in 1978. However, during the last two or three decades, the glacial trove has seen a remarkable change due to the global warming.

Breakthrough in Animal Fossil Research Reported in Nature

Headed by Yin Leiming from the Nanjing Institute of Geological Peleontology, a research team recently made a big stride forward on embryonic fossil study. They discovered the earliest known diapause egg fossils in rocks. The findings were reported in the April 5 issue of Nature with the title of “Diapause Egg Fossil in Doushantuo Formation”, indicating the earliest history of animals was about 632 million years ago, i.e. animals appeared after the “Snowball Earth” of global Neoproterozoic glaciation. Compared to animal fossils in the Wong’an Biota, the findings push back the earliest records of animal fossils by 50 million years.

Early Homo Sapiens Fossils Found in East Eurasia

Shang Hong, Tong Haowen, etc. from Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, CAS and their American counterpart Prof. Trinkaus from St. Louis University, U.S.A, recently completed a study on human fossils at Tianyuan Cave. The researchers found a batch of early Homo sapiens fossils in China, about 42,000 and 38,500 years ago. It is said that they are the earliest remains of Homo sapiens discovered in east Eurasia. The findings were reported in April 3 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).

“Kidney of Plateau”_Zoige Wetland Shrunk Seriously

The Zoige wetland, one of the world largest Alpine-cold Wetlands, known as the “kidney of plateau” in China is shrinking constantly caused by global warming, decrease of precipitation and by human activities such as over grazing, drainage ditching etc. The wetland, located on the upper-stream of the Yellow River, east of Tibetan Plateau has been serving as the “Reservoir of the Yellow River”, and a major habitat for world endangered wild animals, such as Black Neck Cranes, Erns, etc. It is a key area of global biological diversity and a sensitive area to the global climate change.

To curb the shrinking trend, experimental work has been done to return ditches to wetland and to recover wetland biological functions.

Infrastructures for scientific monitoring and survey have been initially established. In 2007, a Wetland Recovery Project has been launched in the natural reserve of Zoige wetland. The planned desertification treatment area is about 65 hectares and the newly established bird aid station is 900 square meters.