A team of more than 50 people set off on September 20 from Lhasa in Tibet on a one-and-a-half-month scientific expedition to the center of Kekexili (Hoh Xil).

The team is on a first-ever expedition into the central area of Kekexili where much still remains unknown and undiscovered, said Ding Lin, a research fellow with the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (ITP) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

The team will trek through various climate belts and terrain. They will pass volcanoes, springs, karst plateaus and icebergs along the way. They will also cross suture zones - the space between earthquake faults and tectonic plates.

At an average altitude of 5,300 meters above sea level, the Kekexili area is one of the places where original conditions are preserved. Cold and windy all year round, the average temperature is -4 degrees Celsius and the lowest can go as low as -40 degrees.

It is these extreme conditions that gave rise to its being called "no man's land".

Kekexili is in the hinterland of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. "Hoh Xil" in Tibetan means "beautiful lass". Its main body is Kekexili Mountain, and includes northern Tanggula Mountain and southern Kunlun Mountain.

Kekexili is the world's third largest and China's largest uninhabited piece of land.

Ding said that although scientific explorations have been conducted in Kekexili for the last hundred years, its harsh natural environment has prevented scientists and explorers from venturing into "no man's land" or the "forbidden zone".

"Now it is time to do what has not been done," Chen Junchi, deputy captain of the team, said.

The team is comprises 13 CAS scientists, and 20 academicians from 12 disciplines and fields.

This expedition is touted as being the longest into Kekexili in terms of time and distance.

(People's Daily September 23, 2005)