The China Academy of Sciences will make a comprehensive scientific survey in the area of Mount Qomolangma together with other relevant domestic units from March 20 to June 20. This is the first time in this century that China will carry on a multi-disciplinary survey in the area of Mount Qomolangma. It is also a comparatively large-scale expedition. What's the background for launching this survey activity? Are there any great meanings? The writer has interviewed Sun Honglie, an academician with the China Academy of Sciences, for the purpose.

Women climbers will be sent to join the survey team

Writer: Why do we organize the Mount Qomolangma survey?

Sun Honglie: The reason for the survey is that it is 30th anniversary for the China Academy of Sciences to launch its first Qinghai-Tibet scientific expedition. So it is a very good chance to commemorate. In addition this year China Women Mountaineering Team will climb the Qomolangma Peak. The area is very special with unique high altitude. It will be quite difficult for our scientific expedition team to survey the area if without mountaineering activities. The women mountaineering team can help survey and carry some things for us. So there comes possibility.

Writer: Are there any difference between the ways of survey and equipment at present and those in the past?

Sun: As for the scientific survey, there will be no special equipment. However, some compression oxygen cylinders should be available and the cylinders should be very small. We are at low altitudes and the low altitude areas in Tibet are those areas below 5,000 meters above sea level. You must adapt yourselves to the areas, as there will be no enough oxygen cylinders for you. The areas of 5,000 meters above sea level are called as extra high altitude areas. It will be very difficult if without oxygen cylinders.

Measure the height of Mount Qomolangma once again

Writer: What role will the Mount Qomolangma survey play in the research of the entire Qinghai-Tibet Plateau?

Sun: the height of Qomolangma area reaches 8,000 meters above sea level. As a result there are many specialties there. We are very interested in the area's biology. There exist glaciers in the area. It is very significant to make research on the formation and change of the glaciers there. It is a very important area for the research of the advance and retreat of the glaciers there. This survey includes the researches on atmosphere physics and chemistry, the changes of glaciers, biological diversity, ecological changes, geology and geophysics. The survey is very significant for these sciences.

Writer: From related reports the public seems paying more attention to the "height" of the Qomolangma Peak. The "2004 World Map Atlas", newly published by the US National Geographic Society, marks that the peak grows two meters. What standards and methods will be used to measure once again the height of Mount Qomolangma in this scientific survey?

Sun: Up to now the published altitude of the peak is 8,848.13 meters above sea level, which was surveyed 30 years ago. Precision surveying and mapping technology and crossing method were applied for measuring the height in addition that there were mountaineers on the peak. The Mountaineers were on top of the peak and set up a surveyor's beacon there. Otherwise there would be no way for joining the survey lines. The result can be achieved only by joining the lines. This time we will measure the height of the peak once again and will see if there will be any change about the height 30 years later as the peak is continuously growing. The survey is aimed at how it grows.

Writer: The relevant researches prove that the concentration of heavy metals in the area of Mount Qomolangma including arsenic and selenium have already exceeded those of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River with average arsenic content per liter water increasing 10 times from 1970s to 1990s and the content of selenium increased by four times. The PH value of snow sampled at the 6,000 meters above sea level reaches 5.8, so there is a great environmental change. What is the reason for the change?

Sun: I have checked the figures, which are made by some explorers. At that time, their judgment was like this: one of the main reasons was that in 1991 there was a petroleum fire in the Middle East, in which the chemical elements were brought here by high-altitude air flow and fell onto the snow. Another reason was that some currents above many low-altitude plain areas have brought chemical elements here due to the high altitude peak with the currents going up.

There will be troubles for building the Qinghai-Tibet Railway if without the research on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Writer: You were the leading figure and one of the pioneers to make research on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Originally the research on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was listed as one of the country's large-scale scientific surveys. What was its original intention? What outstanding work have we done in this area in the nearly 30 years since the first survey on the height of the peak by your academy?

Sun: The first reason for our paying great attention to the study of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the national requirement. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau covers a total area of 2.4 million square kilometers, accounting for a quarter of the total area of the country. When developing the area it is, of cause, necessary to understand its conditions in details. And it happens that scientists have very little understanding of it. It is certain that in tens of million years ago the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was a sea. Why does it change into land and become the highest roof of the world. It involves the question of crust movement or, from earth geophysics, is the question of geodynamics. The area is the best for the research of geodynamics. What's more its environment is very unique in the whole world and no places in the world can be hardly compared with it. So these problems have attracted people's attention from the angle of scientific researches. That is why the China Academy of Sciences has made its determination to make researches on this area. Since 1960s, especially from 1973 on, the academy has continuously made researches on this area with a great deal of manpower and materials.

I think the main research on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is focused on the basic research and on the exploration of unknown nature law. Some questions with future applications are also listed in the Qinghai-Tibet research program. For example, the original research on the frozen ground distribution of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was not for building the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is a frozen area. The original research was focused on the laws of distribution, formation and change of the frozen ground. Now the research has become the most valuable treasure for building the Qinghai-Tibet Railway. The building of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway will be indeed a trouble if without the research on frozen ground.

Sun Hongjie's brief biography

Sun Hongjie, a native of Puyang in Henan province, was born in Beijing. He graduated from the department of chemistry of the Beijing Agricultural University in 1954. After graduation he became a teacher in the university. He became an associate research fellow of the comprehensive survey committee of the China Academy of Sciences since 1961. After 1975 he became one of the leading team members, deputy director, associate research fellow and research fellow of the comprehensive survey committee of the China Academy of Sciences. He was the vice director of the China Academy of Sciences from 1984 to 1992. He was elected as the academician of the Third World Academy of Sciences in 1987. He was elected as a member of the geosciences department of the China Academy of Sciences (later changed to academician of the academy) in 1991. He was invited as the chief scientist for the project of the "formation and environment changes of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and its ecosystem research" in 1992. He became a member of the Environment and Resource Protection Committee" of the Ninth National People's Congress.

By People's Daily Online