RESEARCH PROGRESS IN METHODOLOGY FOR PALEOELEVATION RECONSTRUCTION OF THE TIBETAN PLATEAU

The uplift of the Tibetan Plateau has profound influence on changes of the Asian and global climate. Therefore, the quantitative reconstruction of paleoelevation of the Tibetan Plateau is a key link to understand the history and mechanism and even environmental consequence of the tectonic uplift. Through about ten years' effort, scientists have made great progress in the methodology of paleoelevation reconstruction. These methods include vesicular basalts paleoaltimetry, fossil floras paleoahimetry, stable-isotope paleoaltimetry and terrestrial cosmogenic nuclides paleoahimetry etc. The developments of these methods provide new ideas and tools to reconstruct the paleoelevation. In this paper, we suramarize basic theory of these methods and discuss their limitations in application so as to promote the research on paleoaltimetry of the Tibetan Plateau in China.