Considering that almost one third of the population of the world depends on the water supply from the Tibetan Plateau, the future development of the monsoon on the Tibetan Plateau will have a major societal impact. To define parameters for future climate change scenarios (IPCC) and their consequences for ecosystems, it is necessary to improve our knowledge of timing, duration, and intensity of past climatic variability and environmental impact, not only on short but also on long geologic time scales.

Nam Co represents one of the largest and deepest lakes on the Tibetan Plateau. Due to this location in the modern monsoon  regime (wind, precipitation), paleoclimate proxies reflect the spatial and temporal development of large-scale atmospheric circulation systems. A continuous, high-resolution, record for these long time scales from Nam Co will further enable to study sediment budget changes under varying climatic and tectonic settings, and contribute to a better understanding of the Quaternary geomagnetic field.

Keywords: Asia, China, Geomicrobiology, Paleoclimate, Paleoenvironment, Paleomagnetism, Tectonics