Worldwide, changing climates and land use practices are escalating woody-plants encroachment into grasslands, reducing biodiversity and altering ecosystem functions. The loss of alpine grasslands is a major conservation concern as they harbor many rare and endemic species. Alpine meadows in Northwest Yunnan, China, represent a global biodiversity hotspot with high species richness, beta diversi...

Integration of data from field. geochemistry, and radiometric age invcstigations of the active Banda arc-Australia collision zonc (Banda orogen) and· the Jurassic Brooks Range ophiolite provide ncw constraints for the origin and emplacement of Oman-type ophiolites. These ophiolites arc characterized by ultramafic residuals and mafic products that arc chemically modified by "anous dcgrees of pan...

Structural field relations, petrologic and geochemical studies, and radiometric age aualysis of metamorphic rocks at the base of the Brooks Range ophiolite provide a record of the time, tectonic setting, and initial conditions of ophiolite emplacement during the Middle Jurassic western Brookian orogeny. The metamorphic sole of the Misheguk, Siniktanneyak, and Avan Hills ophiolite bodies is tran...

(40)Ar/(39)Ar dates of emplacement-related metamorphic rocks beneath the Samail ophiolite in Oman show that cooling to <525 degrees C occurred within approximately 1 million years of igneous crystallization of the ophiolite. This unexpectedly short time span and rapid cooling means that old, cold continental or oceanic lithosphere must have been adjacent to the ophiolite during spreading and th...

Hippophae tibetana is a small, dioecious wind-pollinated shrub endemic to the Tibetan-Qinghai Plateau. It is one of the shrubs that occur at very high elevations (5250 m a.s.l.). The Himalayan mountains provides a significant geographical barrier to the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, dividing the Himalayan area into two regions with Nepal to the south and Tibet to the north. There is no information o...

I review the current status of Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus) and Himalayan brown bear (Ursus arctos) in India based on a questionnaire, interviews, and a literature survey. The Himalayan region and the hills of northeastern India probably support one of the largest populations of Asiatic black bear in Asia. Asiatic black bears live in forested mountain habitats (1,200-3,300 m) in the st...

Recent molecular phylogenetics have indicated that American mayapple (mainly self-incompatible, SI) and Himalayan mayapple, which was considered to be self-compatible (SC), are sister species with disjunct distribution between eastern Asia and eastern North America. We test a hypothesis that the persistence of this earlyspring flowering herb in the Himalayan region is attributable to the transi...

The spatial distribution of mineralization is the foremost concern in regional exploration and it could be considered as a very important tool in the investigation of mineral deposits. There are several data manipulation methods by which the data can be evaluated. Fry analysis is a good method to determine the direction(s) of maximum continuity of the deposits and could be used in different typ...