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Across Taklamakan: Scientific expedition into China’s largest desert ready for final route survey

By Jiang Jie in Hetian (People's Daily Online)    17:04, August 20, 2018
Across Taklamakan: Scientific expedition into China’s largest desert ready for final route survey
(A road leads to Maza Tagh Mountain. Photo courtesy of Sun Ru)

Sprawling across the Tarim Basic in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Taklamakan Desert, the largest desert in China and the second largest shifting sand desert in the world, is ready to finally welcome an all-Chinese scientific expedition team by the end of 2018.

The Chinese scientific expedition on August 17 finished its five-day second route survey in Xinjiang’s Hetian prefecture, paving the way for the final survey before the expedition begins in November.

The expedition is scheduled to last for more than a month. During that time, a number of scientific studies will be conducted to study the underground and surface water of the desert as well as the geology of the Maza Tagh Mountain that cuts into the desert from its western border to the Hetian River.

Another important focus of the expedition will be on the people of Keriya, the most mysterious people in China, who have lived for generations inside Daliyabuyi, a village that is hidden some 200 kilometers away from Yutian County in the desert.

The Keriya people, with their green eyes and language that is slightly different from Uyghur, may have been living in the desert for centuries - a mysterious question under debate among experts. Their ancestry remains one of the unsolved problems in the study of Chinese anthropology. There is also a vast desert poplar forest, which is another interesting biological phenomenon for scientists.

Known as the “ocean of death” and the “place of no return,” Taklamakan Desert, which is about the size of Germany, has always been a paradise for adventurers from home and abroad, and the desire to go deeper into the sand has grown stronger for many, as it remains a place of mystery.

As early as in the 1800s, Russian explorer N.M. Przhevalsky and Swedish explorer Sven Hedin both set foot on the heartland in Asia. Hedin, especially, stunned the world with his discovery of the ruined city of Loulan Kingdom and the rediscovery of Karadong and Dandan Oilik, two important Buddhist sites in the oasis of the desert, all of which have been dated back to 2,000 years.

In 1990s and early 2000s, China-UK and China-Japan joint expedition teams also explored the region, attempting to unveil its beauty and mysterious secrets to the world.

The unfulfilled mission is expected to be carried on by the Chinese scientific expedition team, which will be made up of a number of leading Chinese archaeologists, biologists, geologists, and anthropologists, including Liu Shaochuang, a remote sensing expert with Chinese Academy of Sciences, who aims to scan the entire desert so as to better understand its water resources.

The expedition team will also feature Zong Tongchang, the only Chinese member that has crossed the 39 degree north latitude line on foot in the desert during the China-Japan expedition team in 2004.

“We want to inject more scientific value into our outdoor activities and call on more people to raise awareness of environmental protection and stay close to nature,” Li Xin, leader of the route survey team from China’s leading off-road vehicle and adventure platform FBLife, told People’s Daily.

Li added that the expedition also aims to further tap into the tourism resources in southern Xinjiang in order to help the poverty-stricken region with more solutions to improve people’s livelihood.


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(Web editor: Jiang Jie, Bianji)

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