Late Holocene Vegetation and Climate Oscillations in the Qaidam Basin of the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau

2010 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-69 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Zhao ◽  
Zicheng Yu ◽  
Xiuju Liu ◽  
Cheng Zhao ◽  
Fahu Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Qaidam Basin ◽  
Ice Core ◽  
Sediment Cores ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Snow Accumulation ◽  
Northeastern Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Climate Shifts ◽  
Precipitation Changes ◽  
Vegetation And Climate

Pollen evidence from sediment cores at Hurleg and Toson lakes in the Qaidam Basin was obtained to examine vegetation and climatic change in the northeastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. The chronologies were controlled by 210Pb and 137Cs analysis and AMS 14C dating. Pollen assemblages from both lakes are dominated by Chenopodiaceae (∼ 40%), Artemisia (∼ 30–35%) and Poaceae (∼ 20–25%), with continued occurrence but low abundance of Nitraria, Ephedra, and Cyperaceae. Artemisia/Chenopodiaceae (A/C) pollen ratios from two lakes show coherent large oscillations at centennial timescale during the last 1000 yr. A/C ratios were high around AD 1170, 1270, 1450, 1700 and 1920, suggesting that the vegetation was more “steppe-like” under a relatively moist climate than that during the intervening periods. Wet-dry climate shifts at the two lakes (2800 m asl) are in opposite phases to precipitation changes derived from tree-ring records in the surrounding mountains (> 3700 m asl) and to pollen and snow accumulation records from Dunde ice core (5300 m asl), showing that a dry climate in the basin corresponds with a wet interval in the mountains, especially around AD 1600. This contrasting pattern implies that topography might have played an important role in mediating moisture changes at regional scale in this topographically complex region.

An ice-core record of vegetation and climate changes in the central Tibetan Plateau during the last 550 years

2010 ◽  
Vol 55 (12) ◽  
pp. 1169-1177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bao Yang ◽  
LingYu Tang ◽  
ChunHai Li ◽  
YaJun Shao ◽  
ShiCheng Tao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Climate Changes ◽  
Ice Core ◽  
Central Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Ice Core Record ◽  
Vegetation And Climate

A comparative study of radiocarbon dating on terrestrial organisms and fish from Qinghai Lake in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau, China

The Holocene ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (11) ◽  
pp. 1712-1719 ◽  
Author(s):  
E ChongYi ◽  
YongJuan Sun ◽  
XiangJun Liu ◽  
Guangliang Hou ◽  
ShunChang Lv ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Late Holocene ◽  
Sediment Cores ◽  
Qinghai Lake ◽  
The Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Fish Bones ◽  
Northeastern Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Animal Bones ◽  
Gymnocypris Przewalskii ◽  
The Difference

Qinghai Lake is the largest lake on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and in China and has been a focus of paleoenvironmental and climatic research for decades. However, limited understanding of lake 14C reservoir effects (LRE) has led to inconsistent interpretations among proxies of different sediment cores. As such, the onset of LRE variability during the Holocene is still unclear. 14C dating of archeological samples from four locations (Gangcha, Shaliuheqiaoxi, and Shinaihai sites, and Niaodao section) including naked carp ( Gymnocypris przewalskii, Kessler) fish bones, animal bones and teeth, and charcoal was employed to estimate variations in LRE over the last few thousand years. LRE offsets calculated as the difference between LRE of animal bones and fish bones are more reliable than that of charcoal and fish bones due to the ‘old wood’ effect in charcoal. LRE offsets recorded in fish bones were ~0.5, ~0.6, and ~0.7 ka during the periods of 3.0–3.4 cal ka BP, 0.58–0.60 cal ka BP, and modern lake times, respectively, which may indicate a temporal minimum LRE offset. Unlike the wide spatial variations of LRE ages obtained from surface total organic carbon (TOC) samples of the modern Qinghai Lake, LRE offsets from the three contemporaneous locations in Qinghai Lake were all ~0.5 ka, suggesting efficient carbon mixing occurred in naked carp. However, the late-Holocene (~3.1 ka BP) LRE increased slightly with increasing salinity and decreasing lake level.

Quantitative climate and vegetation trends since the late glacial on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau deduced from Koucha Lake pollen spectra

2009 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-171 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ulrike Herzschuh ◽  
Annette Kramer ◽  
Steffen Mischke ◽  
Chengjun Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Vegetation Change ◽  
Late Glacial ◽  
Quantitative Information ◽  
The Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Climate History ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Northeastern Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Vegetation And Climate ◽  
Cool Climate

AbstractQuantitative information on vegetation and climate history from the late glacial–Holocene on the Tibetan Plateau is extremely rare. Here, we present palynological results of a 4.30-m-long sediment record collected from Koucha Lake in the Bayan Har Mountains, northeastern Tibetan Plateau. Vegetation change has been traced by biomisation, ordination of pollen data, and calculation of pollen ratios. The application of a pollen–climate calibration set from the eastern Tibetan Plateau to Koucha Lake pollen spectra yielded quantitative climate information. The area was covered by alpine desert/steppe, characteristic of a cold and dry climate (with 50% less precipitation than today) between 16,700 and 14,600 cal yr BP. Steppe vegetation, warm (∼ 1°C higher than today) and wet conditions prevailed between 14,600 and 6600 cal yr BP. These findings contradict evidence from other monsoon-influenced areas of Asia, where the early Holocene is thought to have been moist. Low effective moisture on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau was likely due to high temperature and evaporation, even though precipitation levels may have been similar to present-day values. The vegetation changed to tundra around 6600 cal yr BP, indicating that wet and cool climate conditions occurred on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau during the second half of the Holocene.

scholarly journals An Early Miocene Lowland on the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qian Tian ◽  
Xiaomin Fang ◽  
Yan Bai ◽  
Chihao Chen ◽  
Juzhi Hou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tibetan Plateau ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Late Miocene ◽  
Qaidam Basin ◽  
Early Miocene ◽  
Annual Average ◽  
Northeastern Tibetan Plateau ◽  
The Mean ◽  
First Time ◽  
Glycerol Dialkyl Glycerol Tetraethers

The northeastern Tibetan Plateau (NE TP) has long been thought to be the last part of the Plateau to be raised, but this assumption has been challenged by recent analyses of fossil leaf energy, which have pointed to the possibility that the present surface altitude of ∼3,000 m above sea level (asl) in the Qaidam Basin (QB) was attained during the Oligocene. Here, for the first time, we present a record of glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) from a well-dated Cenozoic section in the QB. This record appears to demonstrate that the mean annual average paleotemperature of the QB was 28.4 ± 2.9°C at ∼18.0 Ma. This would suggest that the paleoelevation of the QB was only ∼1,488 m asl at that time and that a ∼1,500 m uplift was attained afterwards, in agreement with the massive shortening of the QB and the rapid drying of inland Asia since the late Miocene.

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