Wind erosion caused clustered development and rapid growth of nebkhas in the eastern Qaidam Basin of the Tibetan Plateau

2022 ◽  
Vol 197 ◽  
pp. 104665
Author(s):  
Jinchang Li ◽  
Wenxing Zhao ◽  
Na Zhou ◽  
Chunlai Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Wind Erosion ◽  
Qaidam Basin ◽  
The Tibetan Plateau

Paleolake salinity evolution in the Qaidam Basin (NE Tibetan Plateau) between ~42 and 29 Ma: Links to global cooling and Paratethys sea incursions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chengcheng Ye ◽  
Yibo Yang ◽  
Xiaomin Fang ◽  
Weilin Zhang ◽  
Chunhui Song ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Middle Eocene ◽  
Qaidam Basin ◽  
Regional Climate ◽  
Regional Climate Change ◽  
Driving Mechanism ◽  
The Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Early Oligocene ◽  
Global Cooling

<p>Global cooling, the early uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, and the retreat of the Paratethys are three main factors that regulate long-term climate change in the Asian interior during the Cenozoic. However, the debated elevation history of the Tibetan Plateau and the overlapping climate effects of the Tibetan Plateau uplift and Paratethys retreat makes it difficult to assess the driving mechanism on regional climate change in a particular period. Some recent progress suggests that precisely dated Paratethys transgression/regression cycles appear to have fluctuated over broad regions with low relief in the northern Tibetan Plateau in the middle Eocene–early Oligocene, when the global climate was characterized by generally continuous cooling followed by the rapid Eocene–Oligocene climate transition (EOT). Therefore, a middle Eocene–early Oligocene record from the Asian interior with unambiguous paleoclimatic implications offers an opportunity to distinguish between the climatic effects of the Paratethys retreat and those of global cooling.</p><p>Here, we present a complete paleolake salinity record from middle Eocene to early Miocene (~42-29 Ma) in the Qaidam Basin using detailed clay boron content and clay mineralogical investigations. Two independent paleosalimeters, equivalent boron and Couch’s salinity, collectively present a three-staged salinity evolution, from an oligohaline–mesohaline environment in the middle Eocene (42-~34 Ma) to a mesosaline environment in late Eocene-early Oligocene (~34-~29 Ma). This clay boron-derived salinity evolution is further supported by the published chloride-based and ostracod-based paleosalinity estimates in the Qaidam Basin. Our quantitative paleolake reconstruction between ~42 and 29 Ma in the Qaidam Basin resembles the hydroclimate change in the neighboring Xining Basin, of which both present good agreement with changes of marine benthic oxygen isotope compositions. We thus speculated that the secular trend of clay boron-derived paleolake salinity in ~42-29 Ma is primarily controlled by global cooling, which regulates regional climate change by influencing the evaporation capacity in the moisture source of Qaidam Basin. Superimposed on this trend, the Paratethys transgression/regression cycles served as an important factor regulating wet/dry fluctuations in the Asian interior between ~42 and ~34 Ma.</p>

scholarly journals Late Cenozoic continuous aridification in the western Qaidam Basin: evidence from sporopollen records

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1485-1508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. F. Miao ◽  
X. M. Fang ◽  
F. L. Wu ◽  
M. T. Cai ◽  
C. H. Song ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Middle Miocene ◽  
Qaidam Basin ◽  
East Asian ◽  
The Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Late Cenozoic ◽  
Plateau Uplift ◽  
Western Qaidam Basin ◽  
Global Cooling ◽  
Tibetan Plateau Uplift

Abstract. Cenozoic climate changes in inner Asia provide a basis for understanding linkages between global cooling, the Tibetan Plateau uplift, and possibly the development of the East Asian monsoon. Based on the compiled palynological results from the western Qaidam Basin, this study reconstructed an 18 Ma record of changing vegetation and paleoclimates since the middle Miocene. Thermophilic taxa percentages were highest between 18 and 14 Ma and decreased after 14 Ma, corresponding closely with the Middle Miocene Climatic Optimum (MMCO) between 18 and 14 Ma and the following global climatic cooling. After 3.6 Ma, the thermophilic taxa percentages further decreased, showing the inevitable relations with the ice-sheets enlargement in the North Hemisphere. During the same period of time, the increase in xerophytic taxa percentages and decrease in conifers percentages imply aridification in both the basin and surrounding mountains since 18 Ma. These results indicate that global cooling mainly controlled the climate change from a relative warm-wet stage to a cold-dry stage during the late Cenozoic at the western Qaidam Basin, and that the Tibetan Plateau uplift also contributed in contrast to the East Asian summer monsoon.

scholarly journals Monitoring 40-Year Lake Area Changes of the Qaidam Basin, Tibetan Plateau, Using Landsat Time Series

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huiying Li ◽  
Dehua Mao ◽  
Xiaoyan Li ◽  
Zongming Wang ◽  
Cuizhen Wang
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Human Impacts ◽  
Qaidam Basin ◽  
Salt Lakes ◽  
Anthropogenic Factors ◽  
The Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Lake Area ◽  
Landsat Images

Areal changes of high-altitude inland lakes on the Qaidam Basin (QB) of the Tibetan Plateau are reliable indicators of climate change and anthropogenic disturbance. Due to the physical difficulties to access, our knowledge of the spatial patterns and processes of climatic and human impacts on the Basin has been limited. Focusing on lake area changes, this study used long-term Landsat images to map the patterns of lakes and glaciers in 1977, 1990, 2000, and 2015, and to monitor the spatially explicit changes of lakes between 1977 and 2015. Results revealed that the total number of lakes (area > 0.5 km2) increased by 18, while their total area expanded by 29.8%, from 1761.5 ± 88.1 km2 to 2285.9 ± 91.4 km2. Meanwhile, glaciers have decreased in area by 259.16 km2 in the past four decades. The structural equation model (SEM) was applied to examine the integrative effects of natural and anthropogenic factors on lake area. Precipitation change exhibited the most significant influence on lake area in the QB from 1977 to 2000, while human activities also played an important role in the expansion of lakes in the QB in the period 2000–2015. In particular, extensive exploitation of salt lakes as mining resources resulted in severe changes in lake area and landscape. The continuously expanding salt lakes inundated the road infrastructure nearby, posing great threats to road safety. This study shed new light on the impacts of recent environmental changes and human interventions on lakes in the Qaidam Basin, which could assist policy-making for protecting the lakes and for strengthening the ecological improvement of this vast, arid basin.

Wind erosion on the north-eastern Tibetan Plateau: constraints from OSL and U-Th dating of playa salt crust in the Qaidam Basin

2013 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 779-789 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wenxia Han ◽  
Zhibang Ma ◽  
Zhongping Lai ◽  
Erwin Appel ◽  
Xiaomin Fang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Wind Erosion ◽  
Qaidam Basin ◽  
Eastern Tibetan Plateau ◽  
The North ◽  
Salt Crust ◽  
North Eastern

New Olonbulukia material and its related assemblage reveal an early radiation of stem Caprini along the north of the Tibetan Plateau

2018 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 385-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shi-Qi Wang ◽  
Qing Yang ◽  
Ya Zhao ◽  
Chun-Xiao Li ◽  
Qin-Qin Shi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Qaidam Basin ◽  
Northern China ◽  
High Mountain ◽  
The Tibetan Plateau ◽  
The North ◽  
Hemitragus Jemlahicus ◽  
Himalayan Tahr ◽  
Early Radiation ◽  
Mixed Pattern

AbstractLiving Caprini are dominant bovids in the pan-Tibetan area that are strongly adapted to dry steppe and high-mountain meadow habitats. Some taxa with Holarctic distributions, e.g., Ovis Linnaeus, 1758, were thought to originate on the Tibetan Plateau and subsequently dispersed elsewhere, which was depicted as an ‘out of Tibet’ story. However, except for some information on a stem caprine assemblage from the Qaidam Basin, the early evolution of Caprini around the Tibetan Plateau is poorly known. Here, we report new material of Olonbulukia tsaidamensis Bohlin, 1937, which was a member of this stem caprine assemblage, from the Wuzhong region, northern China, confirming the similarity of the Wuzhong Fauna and ‘Qaidam Fauna.’ Based on a biometric study of horncores from the ‘Qaidam’ and Wuzhong faunas, we recognize six taxa from this stem caprine assemblage: O. tsaidamensis, O. sp., Qurliqnoria cheni Bohlin, 1937, Tossunnoria pseudibex Bohlin, 1937, ?Protoryx cf. P. enanus Köhler, 1987, and cf. Pachytragus sp. Among these taxa, Q. cheni and T. pseudibex are probably related to some extant Tibetan endemic species, e.g., the Tibetan antelope, Pantholops hodgsonii (Abel, 1826), and the Himalayan tahr, Hemitragus jemlahicus (Smith, 1826). Others might be ancestral to the Turolian caprine assemblages and even possibly gave rise to the extant Caprina. This work reveals an early radiation of stem caprines along the northern side of the rising Tibetan Plateau and indicates a mixed pattern of pan-Tibetan stem caprine evolution prior to their dispersal out of the Tibetan Plateau.

scholarly journals A lake data set for the Tibetan Plateau from the 1960s, 2005, and 2014

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Wan ◽  
Di Long ◽  
Yang Hong ◽  
Yingzhao Ma ◽  
Yuan Yuan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Yellow River ◽  
Qaidam Basin ◽  
The Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Design Data ◽  
Data Set ◽  
River Ganges ◽  
The 1960S

Abstract Long-term datasets of number and size of lakes over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are among the most critical components for better understanding the interactions among the cryosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere at regional and global scales. Due to the harsh environment and the scarcity of data over the TP, data accumulation and sharing become more valuable for scientists worldwide to make new discoveries in this region. This paper, for the first time, presents a comprehensive and freely available data set of lakes’ status (name, location, shape, area, perimeter, etc.) over the TP region dating back to the 1960s, including three time series, i.e., the 1960s, 2005, and 2014, derived from ground survey (the 1960s) or high-spatial-resolution satellite images from the China-Brazil Earth Resources Satellite (CBERS) (2005) and China’s newly launched GaoFen-1 (GF-1, which means high-resolution images in Chinese) satellite (2014). The data set could provide scientists with useful information for revealing environmental changes and mechanisms over the TP region. Design Type(s) time series design • observation design • data integration objective Measurement Type(s) lake topography Technology Type(s) remote sensing Factor Type(s) Sample Characteristic(s) Tibetan Plateau • Qaidam Basin • Amu Darya • Brahmaputra River • River Ganges • Hexi District • Indus River • Mekong River • Salween River • Tarim Basin • Yangtze River • Yellow River • endorheic lake • exorheic lake Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data (ISA-Tab format)

Stratigraphic Evidence for the Uplift of the Tibetan Plateau between ∼1.1 and ∼0.9 myr Ago

2000 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jimin Sun ◽  
Tungsheng Liu
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Accumulation Rate ◽  
Qaidam Basin ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Middle Pleistocene ◽  
The Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Chinese Loess ◽  
Ice Volume ◽  
Global Ice Volume ◽  
Marginal Region

Uplift of the Tibetan Plateau is manifest not only in widespread denudation, but also by an increased deposition rate of sediment, near or far from the exhumed regions. Our results indicate that the mass accumulation rate (MAR) of eolian dust increased between ∼1.1 and ∼0.9 myr ago. We associate this increase in MAR and median grain size with uplift of the Tibetan Plateau and its adjacent regions during this period. This Middle Pleistocene uplift can also be evidenced by the age of volcanism in the marginal region, the existence of thick conglomerate deposits surrounding the uplifted plateau, and the increased sedimentation rate of lacustrine deposits in the Qaidam Basin (northeastern Tibetan Plateau) between ∼1.1 and ∼0.9 myr ago. The correlation between the loess and marine records indicates that after ∼0.9 myr ago, these two records correlate well. This good correlation probably suggest that the Middle Pleistocene upheaval event not only brought the plateau into the cryosphere, but also enhanced the coupling of regional-scale Chinese loess transportation and deposition to the global ice volume variations through its effects on glacial grinding, rock denudation, and east Asian monsoonal circulation.

scholarly journals The regional distribution characteristics of aerosol optical depth over the Tibetan Plateau

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (11) ◽  
pp. 15683-15710 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Xu ◽  
Y. M. Ma ◽  
C. You ◽  
Z. K. Zhu
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Aerosol Optical Depth ◽  
Optical Depth ◽  
Qaidam Basin ◽  
Regional Distribution ◽  
Atmospheric Environment ◽  
Main Body ◽  
The Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Atmospheric Conditions ◽  
Natural Boundary

Abstract. The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is representative of typical clean atmospheric conditions. Aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrieved by Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) is higher over Qaidam Basin than the rest of the TP all the year. Different monthly variation patterns of AOD are observed over the southern and northern TP, whereby the aerosol load is usually higher in the northern TP than in the southern part. The aerosol load over the northern part increases from April to June, peaking in May. The maximum concentration of aerosols over the southern TP occurs in July. Aerosols appear to be more easily transported over the main body of the TP across the northeastern edge rather than the southern edge. This is may be because the altitude is much lower at the northeastern edge than that of the Himalayas located along the southern edge of the TP. Three-dimensional distributions of dust, polluted dust, polluted continental and smoke are also investigated based on Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) data. Dust is found to be the most prominent aerosol type on the TP, and other types of aerosols affect the atmospheric environment slightly. A natural boundary seems to extend to an altitude of 6–8 km a.s.l., which may act as a dividing line of higher dust occurrence in the northern TP and lower dust occurrence in the southern TP, especially in spring and summer. This boundary appears around 33–35° N in the middle of the plateau, and it is possibly associated with the high altitude terrain in the same geographic location. Comparisons of CALIPSO and MISR data show that this natural boundary extending to upper troposphere is consistent with the spatial pattern of aerosol loading. The whole TP blocks the atmospheric aerosols transported from surrounding regions, and the extreme high mountains on the TP also cause an obstruction to the transport of aerosols. The aerosol distribution patterns are primarily driven by atmospheric circulation. Northerly winds prevail above the TP in spring, which also facilitates the transport of aerosols from the Tarim Basin and Qaidam Basin to the main body of the TP. Nevertheless, aerosols above the TP can originate from both the northern and southern sides of the TP during summer.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document