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Rapid and punctuated Late Holocene recession of Siling Co, central Tibet

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Date
15/09/2017
Author
Shi, Xuhua
Kirby, Eric
Furlong, Kevin P.
Meng, Kai
Robinson, Ruth
Lu, Haijian
Wang, Erchie
Keywords
Holocene lake level fluctuations
Siling Co shorelines
Tibetan Plateau
Asian monsoon
Holocene abrupt climate change
Hydrologic index
GE Environmental Sciences
QE Geology
NDAS
SDG 13 - Climate Action
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Abstract
Variations in the strength of the Asian monsoon during Holocene time are thought to have been associated with widespread changes in precipitation across much of Tibet. Local records of monsoon strength from cave deposits, ice cores, and lake sediments typically rely on proxy data that relate isotopic variations to changes in precipitation. Lake expansion and contraction in response to changing water balance are likewise inferred from sedimentologic, isotopic and paleobiologic proxies, but relatively few direct records of changes in lake volume from preserved shorelines exist. Here we utilize relict shoreline deposits and associated alluvial fan features around Siling Co, the largest lake in central Tibet, to reconstruct centennial-to-millennial-scale variations in lake area and volume over the Holocene. Mapping and surveying of lacustrine shorelines coupled with optically stimulated luminescence dating of associated deposits indicate protracted occupation of a highstand elevation from >8 ka to 4 ka, followed by rapid recession that was likely punctuated by several stillstands of centennial-scale duration. Calculation of the changes in lake surface area and past hydrologic indices of the Siling Co basin suggests the effective moisture during the early Holocene highstand was approximately three times greater than today. In contrast to other lakes in central and western Tibet, our results suggest that Siling Co did not begin to recede synchronously with decreasing solar insolation at ca. 9–8 ka. Rather, initial recession of Siling Co appears to correspond to a time period of enhanced aridity and weakened monsoon in both Africa and Asia at ca. 4.2 ka. Our results add to a growing body of literature that suggest a period of relatively severe aridity on the Tibetan Plateau at this time. We suggest that subsequent punctuated recession of Siling Co was punctuated by similar periods of abrupt climate change during the Late Holocene.
Citation
Shi , X , Kirby , E , Furlong , K P , Meng , K , Robinson , R , Lu , H & Wang , E 2017 , ' Rapid and punctuated Late Holocene recession of Siling Co, central Tibet ' , Quaternary Science Reviews , vol. 172 , pp. 15-31 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.07.017
Publication
Quaternary Science Reviews
Status
Peer reviewed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.07.017
ISSN
0277-3791
Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Description
This work was supported by a National Science Foundation grant from the Tectonics program (EAR-0911587) to E.K. and K.P.F. Additional support to E.W. was provided by grants from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB03010500). X.S. also thanks the support from the Earth Observatory of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University through its funding from the National Research Foundation Singapore and the Singapore Ministry of Education under the Research Centers of Excellence initiative.
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  • University of St Andrews Research
URL
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379117304316#appd001
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10023/11416

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