Ice-volume-forced erosion of the Chinese Loess Plateau global Quaternary stratotype site

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.

A 180 ka record of environmental change at Erdut (Croatia): a new chronology for the loess–palaeosol sequence and its implications for environmental interpretation

“…Whether climatically or locally driven, a number of gaps in loess records have been reported at multiple locations (e.g. Dong et al ., 2015; Stevens et al ., 2018), highlighting the danger of the loess continuity assumption. The profiles at Erdut provide a unique view of the issue as profile 4 shows a hiatus that would not be recognised due to the lack of lithological changes.…”

“…They often span multiple glacial–interglacial cycles and offer long‐term Quaternary records in regions where other long‐term archives are frequently absent. Therefore they provide a unique insight into the Earth's past and an opportunity to compare and correlate terrestrial signals with ice‐ and marine‐ core records (Kukla, 1977; Antoine et al ., 2009; Stevens et al ., 2018).…”

“…position and number of palaeosols (Marković et al ., 2015), geomagnetic polarity reversal tie points (Marković et al ., 2011; Sümegi et al ., 2018), and sedimentological correlations with distant ice cores (An, 2000; Rousseau et al ., 2002; Antoine et al ., 2009). However, these methods assume continuous deposition and the absence of erosion, which has since been shown to be erroneous (Stevens et al ., 2006, 2018). In addition, stratigraphic correlation has proven more complicated than originally thought, for example, single soils corresponding to multiple soils at other sites (Marković et al ., 2008), and has led to ambiguous links ( cf Thiel et al ., 2014).…”

Review of the Post-IR IRSL Dating Protocols of K-Feldspar

“…However, it was later found that the pIRIR290 signal intensity was still sufficiently high to guarantee precise measurements even when the prior-IR stimulation temperature was as high as 260 °C, and thus Buylaert et al [88] applied the pIRIR200, 290 protocol to date the last interglacial paleosol (S1) in the Chinese Loess Plateau. Stevens et al [89] reported that De values were underestimated when the prior-IR stimulation temperature was below 140 °C, but a De plateau had…”

Magnetostratigraphy and Palaeoclimatic Significance of the Late Pliocene Red Clay‐Quaternary Loess Sequence in the Lanzhou Basin, Western Chinese Loess Plateau

“…The uplift of the Tibetan Plateau during late Cenozoic, the aridification of the Asian interior, and global climatic cooling are thought to have been major causal factors of regional erosion and the deposition and the evolution of the red clay‐loess sequence on the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) (An et al, ; Liu, ; Maher, ; Stevens et al, ; Zan, Fang, et al, ). Consequently, these red clay‐loess sequences are regarded as one of the most valuable terrestrial archives for deciphering the history of the aridification of the Asian interior and tectonic‐climate interactions during the late Cenozoic (An et al, ; Burbank & Li, ; Maher, ).…”