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Geochemical evidence for Holocene millennial-scale climatic and environmental changes in the south-eastern Mu Us Desert, northern China

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Abstract

Deserts and sandylands that are located in the semi-arid and arid regions in the middle latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere are usually regarded as environmentally sensitive change belts which respond to global climatic change. In northern China, activation or immobilization of sand dunes is mainly influenced by humid and dry variation and is related to stronger or weaker Asian monsoons. In this paper, the history of Holocene millennial-scale climatic and environmental change is reconstructed by the systematic analysis of the geochemical element contents and parameters, along with the OSL and 14C chronologies, from the different lithologies of the palaeosol–aeolian sand sequence in the south-eastern Mu Us Desert, northern China. Our results indicate that the region was dominated by a dry climate with intensive aeolian activity before 7.2 ka BP, and there was an optimal humid climate and fixed desert in 7.2–4.6 ka. Afterwards, the dune fields became mobile again as the effective humidity declined. Additionally, six dry events were discovered with times of ~7.2, 7.0–6.8, 6.6–5.7, 4.6–4.1, 3.7–3.5, and 3.3–2.5 ka, which were not only coincident with the intervals of millennial-scale weaker Asian summer monsoons, but also accordant with the cold events evidenced in the ice cores and deep-sea deposits of the high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. In general, the Holocene climatic and environmental changes had the characteristics of the “monsoonal mode” and “abrupt millennial-scale oscillation” in the Mu Us Desert.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. KZZD-04-04), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41271215), the Foundation for Excellent Youth Scholars of CAREERI, CAS (51Y451211), Key Laboratory of Desert and Desertification, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, CAS (KLDD-2014-011). We give special thanks to editor and two anonymous reviewers who made constructive suggestions and improved the English text.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Desert and Desertification, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, People’s Republic of China

    Bing Liu, Heling Jin, Liangying Sun & Zhong Sun

  2. Key Laboratory of Western China Environmental System (Ministry of Education), Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, People’s Republic of China

    Bing Liu & Shuang Zhao

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  1. Bing Liu
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  2. Heling Jin
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Correspondence to Bing Liu.

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Liu, B., Jin, H., Sun, L. et al. Geochemical evidence for Holocene millennial-scale climatic and environmental changes in the south-eastern Mu Us Desert, northern China. Int J Earth Sci (Geol Rundsch) 104, 1889–1900 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00531-015-1161-7

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