The proposed work will investigate the causes and effects of environmental change in the southern Tibetan Plateau. The Tibetan Plateau figures prominently in models of Cenozoic tectonic, faunal, environmental, and paleoclimate evolution. However, despite extensive research into these topics on the margins of the Tibetan Plateau, little research has focused on the record of environmental change on the plateau itself, and existing data from the plateau is complex and appears contradictory. The extensive lacustrine deposits of high elevation paleolake Zhada in the Zhada Basin of southwestern Tibet contain abundant vertebrate, invertebrate, and plant fossils and preserves a valuable record of environmental change and vertebrate evolution spanning the last 9 Ma. The proposed work seeks to use a combination of carbonate stable isotopes (e.g., d18O, d13C, delta47), molecular geochemical and stable isotopic (e.g., MBT/CBT index, d13Cwax) approaches to reconstruct the history of past climate and environmental changes on the plateau from the Zhada Basin sediments and to link these to the changes in the fossil record. Together, these data will provide the most complete record of environmental and faunal change over this crucial period of time available for this region.
