Ice-volume-forced erosion of the Chinese Loess Plateau global Quaternary stratotype site.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 29515117.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-018-03329-2 and PMC identifier 5841279.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) utilises benchmark chronostratigraphies to divide geologic time. The reliability of these records is fundamental to understand past global change. Here we use the most detailed luminescence dating age model yet published to show that the ICS chronology for the Quaternary terrestrial type section at Jingbian, desert marginal Chinese Loess Plateau, is inaccurate. There are large hiatuses and depositional changes expressed across a dynamic gully landform at the site, which demonstrates rapid environmental shifts at the East Asian desert margin. We propose a new independent age model and reconstruct monsoon climate and desert expansion/contraction for the last ~250 ka. Our record demonstrates the dominant influence of ice volume on desert expansion, dust dynamics and sediment preservation, and further shows that East Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM) variation closely matches that of ice volume, but lags insolation by ~5 ka. These observations show that the EASM at the monsoon margin does not respond directly to precessional forcing.