This thesis deals with the perception and representation of spirits and landscape among Tibetan Buddhist laity in Ladakh, Himalayan India. It contrasts the conventions of Tibetan textual description of places with stories told by Ladakhi Buddhist laity, with a focus on the role played by local spirits and deities. It argues that while textual representations employing the unified and symmetrical imagery of the maṇḍala – a schematic representation of the palace of a divinity – depict the landscape as it might be known to a transcendent observer, stories about places and the spirits associated with them (lhande in Ladakhi) point to an indeterminate, fragmented and culturally unbounded world that has yet to be integrated within any single system of knowledge. This world is pieced together from multiple sources and truth claims, and from the imperfections inherent in ordinary perception; but the inconsistencies and uncertainties involved in this are not usually apparent, and are only made manifest in illness, experiences of disorder and encounters with spirits at night. These persistent uncertainties can be overcome in ritual contexts, in acts of writing or through the invocation of the faculty of divine vision: the palatial image of the maṇḍala is used to counteract the presence of the night outside. This thesis draws attention to the often overlooked role played by the limitations of perception and knowledge in understandings of landscape, and is intended to partly bridge a disciplinary divide by reconstructing the invisible context within which textual representations are created and employed.

One of the profound realizations in Earth science during the last several decades has been that the solid earth and climate system interact through mountain belt evolution. Tectonic forces generate topography, and erosion, driven largely by the climate, destroys topography. Perturbations to the competition between these processes may, for example, have driven the transition from greenhouse to icehouse climate during the Cenozoic. Erosion is the ultimate connection between the climate and solid earth system, and because landscapes are shaped by erosion, they hold in their form information about climatic and tectonic forcings. Reading climatic and tectonic processes from the landscape requires an understanding of how these processes drive erosion. One way that climate influences erosion is by setting the elevation at which glaciation occurs. It has been thought for over a century that erosion by glaciers can limit the height of cold, heavily glaciated mountains. In this thesis, I argue that the prevalence of this phenomenon is underappreciated, and that glacial erosion has imposed an upper limit on the growth of warm, tropical mountains. The argument is premised on a combination of field observations from two (sub)tropical mountain ranges in Costa Rica and Taiwan (including 10Be and 3He surface exposure ages), a new method of topographic analysis that identifies previously unrecognized patterns of landscape rearrangement introduced by high elevation glaciation, and a study of ten tropical mountain ranges that reveals a widespread glacial control on their height. The results of this thesis demonstrate the efficacy of glacial erosion even in the warmest mountains, and challenge the hypothesis that quickly uplifting and eroding landscapes have approached a steady state balance between rock uplift and fluvial erosion during the Pleistocene.

This study was undertaken between July 24, 2003 and January 16, 2004 to investigate the influence of urban development upon the abundance and species diversity of frogs in the upper Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia. Five urban sites were paired with matched non-urban sites. Urban sites were located within or on the fringes of the towns of Katoomba and Blackheath and were subject to varying degrees of physical disturbance, as well as degradation and pollution by urban runoff and sewage. The non-urban sites were located within the Blue Mountains National Park and were effectively un-impacted by human activity. No adequate explanation emerged for the marked difference between the frog assemblages at the two types of habitat. It is speculated that the salts, detergents and other chemicals in urban wastewaters (roadway runoff, yard runoff and sewage) may provide the frogs at urban sites with some level of protection against disease, particularly chytridiomycosis. All indications from this and previous work are that the frog abundance and diversity in non-urban habitats in the upper Blue Mountains of New South Wales are showing the same trends in decline as observed in other montane regions of Australia. Urban habitats are important population reservoirs for the diversity of frog species absent from the non-urban habitats, but are vulnerable to progressive destruction from a variety of human impacts. Efforts should be made by municipal authorities to recognise their significance and to protect them from future loss / Master of Science (Hons)

Satellite image interpretation, geologic mapping, and paleoseismic trenching are used to investigate the Trans-Yamuna active fault system in the northwestern Doon Valley of the Indian Himalayan foothills. This east-west fault system is subparallel to and crosses the Main Boundary thrust near the structural transition from the Nahan salient to the Dehra Dun reentrant. The Trans-Yamuna active fault system may terminate to the east at a lateral ramp of the Main Boundary thrust. A south-side-up, relatively linear fault trace with variable fault dips suggests that the fault system is high-angle reverse with a component of strike-slip. It is subdivided into the Sirmurital, Dhamaun, and Bharli faults, which probably connect at depth. The Dhamaun fault is exposed where it cuts the late Holocene upper Bhatrog terrace deposit of the Giri River. A paleoseismic investigation of the Sirmurital fault at another Giri River terrace did not expose the fault, but it suggests that late Holocene terrace deposits there may be folded into a syncline parallel to fault strike. The fold axis of the syncline continues into bedrock to the west. Earthquakes in 1905, 1803, or perhaps earlier may have been the source of folding of the fine-grained sediments within this terrace deposit. The Trans-Yamuna active fault system is a secondary hangingwall fault that may accommodate some strain release above the decollement during large-magnitude earthquakes. Strike-slip motion may be related to the lateral translation of the Karakoram fault block and east-west extension of the southern Tibet block as a result of oblique convergence between the Indian and Eurasian plates in the northwest Himalaya. / Graduation date: 1999

Fire suppression in the southern and central Appalachian Mountains has resulted in an alteration to vegetation structure and composition. For this research the dominant species, abundance, density and age structure of the ericaceous shrub layer is characterized on four sites across the southern and central Appalachian Mountains. Fire histories for each of the sites varied, and were determined in previous research using dendroecological techniques. Over 800 ericaceous shrubs were collected, species included Pieris floribunda (Pursh) Bentham & Hooker f., Rhododendron maximum L. and Kalmia latifolia L.. Basal area of ericaceous shrubs was significantly different between sites. Age structures show that when fire suppression started Ericaceae began to establish. A few Ericaceae cross-sections displayed scars, that are likely associated with fire events, suggesting they probably survived mild fire events. Ericaceous shrub age structures were also compared to SPB outbreaks and PDSI. There were no significant correlations, but field observations suggest that SPB may be providing conditions suitable for Ericaceae establishment. Topographic patterns reveal that Kalmia latifolia is most abundant at mid-slope positions and decreases at higher and lower slope positions. There were significant differences in the density between slope positions averaged across all sites. Sites with the most recent and frequent fires did not have any of the three ericaceous shrubs collected at the slope bottom or ridge-top. At the most fire-suppressed site Ericaceae are present at every slope position. Age structures reveal that the oldest Ericaceae are found at the mid-slope positions while the age of thickets appears to decrease away from the mid-slope position. This pattern suggests that Ericaceae are moving into slope positions where they were previously less abundant. Sites with the most recent frequent fire regime seem to have prevented Ericaceae from heavily inhabiting high and low topographic positions while also reducing the overall basal area and density of Ericaceae.

Title: Mountain birds – a comparative study from valley to mountaintop in a northern and southern Swedish fjeld   Author: Kristian Zackrisson   Abstract Main aim in this study was to increase the knowledge about birds in the Swedish mountain area. Three questions were asked: 1) Which bird species can be found during the breeding season along a low mountain slope from a forested valley to a mountaintop with bare mountain environment? 2) Do the number of species and individuals differ in different elevation zones? 3) Is the composition of bird species along a low mountain slope the same in the Kebnekaise mountains inLaplandand the Grövelsjön mountains in Dalarna? Bird census in two study sites located in the Kebnekaise mountains and the Grövelsjön mountains and subsequent analysis of the results from the bird census was the main parts in this study. Totally 20 bird species were found along a low mountain slope in the Kebnekaise mountains. In a lower elevation zone below the forest boundary there was 16 bird species and 509 individuals observed. 6 bird species and 65 individuals were registered in an upper elevation zone above the forest boundary. The lower elevation zone indicated a higher biodiversity for birds compared to the upper elevation zone. Bird species composition varied between the two study sites. Five species that had been observed in the Kebnekaise mountains where not found in the Grövelsjön mountains which instead had six species that were not found in the Kebnekaise mountains. Compared to other studies the 20 observed bird species are some of several species in the specific area. The higher biodiversity in the lower elevation zone can be related to declining temperature by elevation gradients. Previous bird censuses indicate that the bird species observed in the Kebnekaise mountains also can be found in the Grövelsjön mountains.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 2000. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-131).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Université de Paris. / Includes bibliographical references.

Kuling, a hill station community located within the Lushan Mountains in Jiangxi Province in the mid-eastern part of China was founded by English missionary Edward Selby Little in 1895. Designed by and for western missionaries and their families and children living in China, Kuling offered cool weather and clean air away from heat and disease in the plains below. Between 1896 and the 1930s, hundreds of residential bungalows were constructed in the planned community of Kuling, along with churches, hospitals, schools, a library, hotels, commercial areas, and leisure and recreation areas such as parks, swimming pools and tennis courts. The bungalow residences in Kuling can be viewed as an historical record representative of and for its associations with the lives of many western Christian missionaries living in China at this time who summered or vacationed in Kuling. Later, as a response to a change in the social and political environment, wealthy Chinese and government officials occupied the residences, and Kuling became a summer capital for the Chinese government. Mt. Lushan (including the bungalows) was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. Today Lushan is a large and vital community that attracts many tourists and visitors; the bungalows in Kuling are fragile and currently face man-made and natural challenges to their sustainable protection. Currently there are no conservation guidelines for the maintenance, repair or alterations to the buildings within this UNESCO World Heritage site. This dissertation will outline the history and creation of Kuling as a hill station, identify its architecture and landscape feature attributes, specific heritage values and character-defining features, and the spirit of the place. The research will answer the question how the Kuling bungalows can best be conserved, and provide a statement of significance, conservation approach, and conservation rationale. The objective of this dissertation is to provide conservation guidelines for the bungalows in Kuling, in order to ensure their proper long-term maintenance and conservation so that they maintain their significance and authenticity as a UNESCO World Heritage site. / published_or_final_version / Conservation / Master / Master of Science in Conservation

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