Drying Tibetan lakes may awaken faults and fuel earthquakes
A new study links the drying of southern Tibet’s ancient lakes, including Nam Co, to earthquakes by unloading crustal weight and reactivating long-dormant faults. Using shoreline reconstructions and computer models, researchers estimate that water loss between about 115,000 and 30,000 years ago caused tens of meters of crustal rise near Nam Co (and even more near other lakes), potentially triggering fault slip. Published in Geophysical Research Letters, the work strengthens the idea that climate-driven surface changes can modulate, rather than cause, tectonic activity deep underground.