[Geysers] New Tibet stuff

[TSBryan at aol.com]

Not into the park yesterday due to snow continuous from 0700 until 1530 or  
so. There was a little more snow overnight and this morning. Now (1100 Friday)  
the road is mostly melted off and the park road report says open. So I hope  
to head in noonish.
 
Meanwhile, I spent a fair while poring through a book about Tibet, a book  
I've had for a couple of years but hadn't thoroughly read. Well, so I discovered 
 a few things and then followed up on the Web.
 
Tirthapuri -- Never heard of it before. This is a holy place in far western  
Tibet. For the geothermal, most books and sources cite the wonderful pink and  
white silica terraces and the fact that there is one geyser there. It 
evidently  erupts every few minutes and reaches up to 6 meters for 30 seconds. There  
apparently are a few other, smaller geysers there, too.
     This is in the area of Mt. Kailash and Lake  Manasarovar. If you're 
really into the sacred trekking business, then you make  the clockwise trek around 
the mountain, then make a clockwise trek around the  lake, and then visit 
Tirthapuri to pray before purifying yourself in the  thermal baths.
 
Qupu -- This place I have in my book as a site of large geothermal  explosion 
craters (one formed as recently as 1975) where boiling springs  are described 
in Chinese geological literature. I now see this place also named  after its 
river, the Tag Tsangpo Hot Springs. It is described as "Up this valley  are 
extensive hot springs and spouting geysers." The location is just off the  
trekking route around Lake Manasarovar but also near a road.
 
Tagyel Chuja (Tagajia and many other spellings). This, the most  extensive 
(apparently) geyser locality in Tibet has now been set aside as a  "national 
park" called the "Ongren Tagejyia Geothermal Geysers Nature  Reserve" that 
encompasses 400 hectares (= 1,000 acres, I think [?]  ). A Chinese Website dated 
2006 notes that 300 million yuan (roughly  $25 million) had been budgeted to 
begin "development" of this and two other  new nature reserves. Another paper was 
about a study of the exceptionally  high content of cesium in the Tagyel Chuja 
sinter. The attached photo was on the  Web, copyright Dr. Klaus Dierks.
 
Chabu -- Another Chinese Website states that one of the geysers at Chabu is  
the largest in China. Years ago I found Geyser Semi described as reaching up 
to  25 feet or so.
 
Gudui -- I've been unable to learn anything about the number or quality of  
geysers at Gudui, but I do now know that there has been geothermal drilling  
there.
 
Yangpachen -- The geothermal power plant there peaked at about 23Mw in the  
1990s, and production apparently is now declining. However, it is still cited 
as  a geyser locality, and one Website I found included a photo of a pretty 
fair  geyser (not included here because though clear, it was of horrible  
quality).
 
Gulu -- I've long known that Gulu was somewhere northwest of Yangpachen,  but 
my Chinese coordinates place it in a most unlikely spot. Now a revised Tibet  
Map Institute map shows hot springs in the right general vicinity, not far 
from  Damchuka.
 
Chakzama County -- This is in far eastern Tibet -- in fact, so far east  that 
it (and a lot of area listed as Tibet in this book) is actually in  Szechwan. 
Lo, the book describes (without specific localities) boiling springs  as 
attractions. It is in this rough area (I don't have the coordinates here)  that a 
place called Chaluo, in Szechwan, hosted at least four geysers in the  1980s.
 
OK, now to go see if I can locate a Yellowstone geyser...
 
Scott Bryan
 
 
 
 



**************Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. used car 
listings at AOL Autos.      
(http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: </geyser-list/attachments/20080425/eb8c09c6/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Tagajia Klaus Dierks 1998.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 158777 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: </geyser-list/attachments/20080425/eb8c09c6/attachment.jpg>