Abstract
Lop Nur in Xinjiang, Northwest China, is located in the lowest part of the Tarim Basin at an altitude of 780 m and experiences an extremely dry climate with an annual precipitation of only 17 mm and a high evaporation rate of 2,728 mm. The pollen and spores from the Late Miocene strata of a borehole in Lop Nur were analyzed with a view to interpreting the paleoenvironmental evolution of Lop Nur. Main types of pollen such as Chenopodiaceae, Nitraria, Ephedra and Artemisia reflect an arid climate. By collating the palynological data in this area as recorded in other literature and by applying the method of Coexistence Analysis, we have obtained the paleoclimatic parameters from Late Miocene to Holocene in Lop Nur. These suggest that temperatures increased from the Late Miocene (10.2°C) to the Pliocene (13.4°C), decreased from Pliocene to Pleistocene (4.7°C), and were more stable from Holocene (12.1°C) until now (11.5°C). The precipitation was stable (about 900 mm) from Late Miocene to Early Pleistocene, then decreased markedly (to about 300 mm) in Middle and Late Pleistocene, and reached its lowest value (17.4 mm) in the Holocene. The changes in paleoclimate at Lop Nur provide new evidence for understanding the uplift of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Professors Nai-Qiu Du for the help in identifying the pollen and spores from the samples, Prof. Wei-Guo Liu, Dr. Serge Molchanoff, Jian Yang for giving valuable advice on the paper, Dr. Ya-Qin Hu for sample collecting and helpful suggestions. The research was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (30470117, 30530050) and National Basic Research Program of China (2004CB720200). This work contributes to NECLIME Project.
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Hao, H., Ferguson, D.K., Chang, H. et al. Vegetation and climate of the Lop Nur area, China, during the past 7 million years. Climatic Change 113, 323–338 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0347-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0347-7