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Chapter 01
Introduction to Research
research nor by the teams of ARIF (Ashtapad Research International Foundation) who conducted recently three campaigns between 2006-2009. Nevertheless, recent investigations suggest that denudation rate is approximately 0.5 mm/year (Lave and Avouac, 2001) to 5-10 mm/yr (Enkelmann et al., 2011), which restricts the increasing uplift due to various natural forces such as volcanoes, landscapes, pressure of ice sheets and earthquakes etc. In last several thousand years the Himalayan mountains have experienced almost all such natural and geological forces including severe climate changes, which, most likely, also might have affected the structure of the Ashtapad Temple. We may conclude in context to model (a) that due to denudation caused as a consequence of erosion and relief etc., described earlier, the temple's ruins/artifacts flowed down forming the sediments and/ or buried into the sub-surface of the mountains or into the lakes. If the temple as a whole or ruins were buried in the Ashtapad Mountain about 10 thousand years before present then the ruins or artifacts might be at a depth between 5 and 50 meters. The possibility of model conjecture (b) also exists but the destruction by enemies or invaders is likely in less than one thousand years before present in view of description of existence of the Ashtapad temple in the Granth of Shri Hemchandracharya M. S. (-1100 AD). Next, even in this case also the ruins must be visible, which are not evident since last few hundreds of years. On the other hand, the history evidence that the Himalayan mountain range has experienced several climate changes in last several thousands to millions of years. During these climate changes in addition to denudation or pressure by the ice sheets the mountains have experienced several volcanoes, landscapes and earthquakes, which might have destroyed the Ashtapad temple/ palace, and the ruins/ artifacts penetrated/ pervaded into the mountain. Such an incidence, however allows the material to flow down instantaneously (few minutes to several hours) and the speed will be governed by pressure of the earthquake shock, gravity, friction forces exerted by the mountain inner surface, and thermal unbalance if volcano is the cause. We may estimate the depth of temple ruins as a function of the magnitude of these parameters and assuming that the ruins have not further penetrated significantly over the period of 10-20 thousand years. The simple estimate suggests that ruins may not exceed the depth of 50 meters. Probing to this depth or to larger extent caused by denudation is possible and we propose the application of radio waveband technique for this challenge in the next section. However, in view of description of the existence of the Ashtapad Temple in the Granth of Shri Hemchandracharya M. S. (-1100 AD), I would particularly like to mention very recent severe climate change during 1500 to 1800 AD known as "Little Ice Age” when several hundreds of people died in Europe, North America and around the world. Throughout the Little Ice Age, the world experienced heightened volcanic activity. When a volcano erupts, its ash reaches high into the atmosphere and can spread to cover the whole Earth. This ash cloud blocks out some of the incoming solar radiation, leading to worldwide cooling that can last up to few years after an eruption. Also emitted by eruptions is in the form of So, gas. When this gas reaches the stratosphere it turns into sulphuric acid particles, which reflect the sun's rays, further reducing the amount of radiation reaching Earth's surface. Thus, it is likely that the Ashtapad temple could have been damaged during the first phase of the Little Ice Age in 1550 AD and followed up by the volcano eruptions which blew away the ruins to large distances and finally buried into the mountains or in the water.
- New Techniques to discover Ashtapad
