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Holocene aeolian activities linked to Indian summer monsoon in the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River

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Abstract

Widespread aeolian deposits on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) have provided valuable palaeoclimatic information. However, the primary factors (e.g., climate factors, human activity, and vegetation cover) controlling aeolian deposition remain elusive. In this paper, we use a dataset that comprises new and published ages of Holocene aeolian sand and loess in the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River to identify the primary controlling factors and palaeoclimatic implications of aeolian deposition. Several intervals of enhanced aeolian accumulation centered at 8.5–7.8, 6.4–5.8, 4.5–4.0, 3.1–1.8, and 0.9 ka are identified, generally consistent with regional low rainfall events and weak Indian summer monsoon (ISM). This suggests that regional wetness, dominated by the ISM, may play a key role in modulating dust emissions and aeolian deposition on centennial timescales. Our results show that on centennial- to millennial-scales, ISM activity can be reconstructed by non-continuous aeolian deposits in the monsoon dominated TP.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Capital Normal University, Beijing, 100048, China

    Tuoyu Li

  2. Key Laboratory of Alpine Ecology (LAE), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, CAS, Beijing, 100101, China

    Jifeng Zhang, Zhitong Chen & Jianbao Liu

  3. MOE Engineering Center of Desertification and Blown-sand Control, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Yongqiu Wu & Shisong Du

  4. Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Duowen Mo & Yinan Liao

  5. Institute of Geographical Sciences, Hebei Engineering Research Center of Geographic Information Application, Hebei Academy of Sciences, Shijiazhuang, 050011, China

    Qing Li

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  1. Tuoyu Li
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  3. Yongqiu Wu
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  9. Qing Li
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Correspondence to Jifeng Zhang.

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Foundation: National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.41601191, No.41871070, No.41877460; National Basic Research Program of China, No. 2013CB956001; Special Researcher Project of Henan Province

Author: Li Tuoyu (1985–), Associate Professor, specialized in environmental archaeology and aeolian research.

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Li, T., Zhang, J., Wu, Y. et al. Holocene aeolian activities linked to Indian summer monsoon in the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River. J. Geogr. Sci. 30, 2002–2014 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-020-1824-6

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