Unstartling Reportage
"Startling Discoveries" Magazine article by Raj Chengappa
This investigative special by a well-known reporter of the Indian environment presents the different geological phenomena and processes active in the Himalayan region in easy-to-understand prose. The complex theory of plate tectonics is explained without resort to jargon. Interesting findings such as the discovery of a hippopotamus skull in Ladakh, which proves that there was warm climate here in the recent geological past, will help awaken the public´s interest in this most interesting of mountain ranges.
But the article, unfortunately, reaches for scientific sensationalism when it makes claims of new and startling discoveries by the Indian scientists quoted and pictured herein. Chengappa seems not to have gone for second opinions. The knowledge of the geology of the Himalaya has accumulated steadily, bit by bit, through the efforts of hundreds of Western and regional scientists, over the last 150 years. It is foolhardy to suggest that a few years of work by the handful of scientists quoted here has led to an unprecedented spurt in the understanding of Himalayan geology.