Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
The temple sat right on top of a stack of ancient lake sediments, one of the terraces that
rose to the elevation of the lower lake shoreline. A painted temple wall along an exterior
walkway even had a striking portrayal of Guru Rimpoche above a lake floating before the
distinctive peaks flanking the gorge entrance. Asked how Guru Rimpoche had drained the
lake, the head Lama said he cared not
how
the great master did it. What was important was
the fact that Guru Rimpoche had. Besides, he continued, the story we should be interested
in was how the ocean once covered all of Tibet. He described how he had seen water-roun-
ded rocks perched on mountainsides high above the valley. He assured us that the ocean
once covered the high peaks. His story of a flood that submerged the world sounded famil-
iar.
Photograph of the truncated glacial moraine where an ancient ice dam extended down off the flanks of Namche Barwa
(the high peak in the background at right) to dam the Tsangpo River immediately upstream of the Tsangpo Gorge
(
pho-
tograph courtesy of Bernard Hallet
).
