New chronology of the Chinese loess-paleosol sequence by leaf wax δD records during the past 800 k.y.

The Chinese loess-paleosol sequences provide important archives for studying paleoenvironmental changes. However, the lack of independent and accurate time scales hinders the study between loess and other records. Asian stalagmite δ18O records indicate synchronous patterns of paleoprecipitation δ18O over large geographic regions. The record of hydrogen isotopic composition of plant wax (δDwax) in Chinese loess is also controlled by rainwater δD. Both share a common origin. The linear relationship between rainfall δ18O and δD variance provides the basis to tie together chronologies of the same climate event in different records. Here, we show a new loess chronology by correlating chronologies of marker boundaries of the prominent climate chronozones in stalagmite δ18O and summer insolation to the equivalent climate stratigraphy in the loess δDwax sequence. We first developed and tested this novel methodology with data since the last interglacial on a millennial scale, and then applied this approach to the loess δDwax sequence for the past 800 k.y. to improve the traditional chronology based on magnetic susceptibility and grain size. The new δDwax time series provides not only an improved chronology for studying paleoclimate changes during interglacial intervals, it also represents a unique database with which to better understand the links between the Asian monsoon changes in the Chinese loess and other global climate events, especially for the periods prior to 640 ka, for which stalagmite records are not available.

Investigating Hydrogen Isotope Variation during Heating of n-Alkanes under Limited Oxygen Conditions: Implications for Palaeoclimate Reconstruction in Archaeological Settings

This paper reports on a series of heating experiments that focus on n-alkanes extracted from leaf, bark, and xylem tissues of the Celtis australis plant. These lipid biomarkers were analysed for their compound-specific hydrogen isotopic composition (δ2Hwax) under limited oxygen conditions at 150, 250, 350, and 450 °C. Our results reveal isotopic variations in wax lipids of different plant organs during short-term low-temperature combustion. We conclude that, in the absence of a detailed characterisation of the depositional environment in advance of sampling, δ2Hwax values in archaeological or otherwise highly anthropogenic environments should be interpreted cautiously. In addition, we observed that variation in δ2Hwax of leaves is minimal at temperatures ≤ 350 °C, highlighting the potential for δ2Hwax in thermally altered combustion substrates to yield palaeoclimate information, which could allow researchers to investigate links between archaeological and climatic records at a high spatial and temporal resolution.

Oxygen and Hydrogen isotopic composition of tap waters in France

The isotopic composition of oxygen (δ18O), and hydrogen (δ2H) are widely used to locate the geographical origin of biological remains or manufactured products. In this paper, we analyze the distributions of δ18O and δ2H in tap waters sampled across France, and in precipitation interpolated with OIPC and modelled with the isotope-enabled ECHAM6-wiso model. Our aim is to provide isoscapes usable in archaeology and forensics and evaluate if modelled data could be surrogates for measured ones.The δ18O and δ2H in the 396 tap waters sampled vary spatially within a range of 10‰ and 77‰ respectively. Their consistent distributions follow rules summarized by the effects of altitude and distance from the coast. Their variations along the year are small. Therefore, the database provides a solid reference for δ18O and δ2H of the water supply system at the regional scale. The areas with the most uncommon oxygen and hydrogen isotopic compositions (Atlantic coast South of Brittany and the highest elevations in the Alps) are the most accurately traceable areas in provenancing studies.The isotopic compositions of modelled precipitation have the same spatial distributions but different absolute values from those of tap waters. Therefore, our results favour the use of statistical isoscapes rather than GCM-based isoscapes in provenancing studies.Supplementary material at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5256034

Validation of a coupled δ²H_{<i>n</i>-alkane}-δ¹⁸O_sugar paleohygrometer approach based on a climate chamber experiment

The hydrogen isotopic composition of leaf wax-derived biomarkers, e.g. long chain n-alkanes (δ2Hn-alkane), is widely applied in paleoclimatology research. However, a direct reconstruction of the isotopic composition of source water based on δ2Hn-alkane alone can be challenging due to the alteration of the soil water isotopic signal by leaf-water heavy-isotope enrichment. The coupling of δ2Hn-alkane with δ18O of hemicellulose-derived sugars (δ18Osugar) has the potential to disentangle this effect and additionally to allow relative humidity reconstructions. Here, we present δ2Hn-alkane as well as δ18Osugar results obtained from leaves of the plant species Eucalyptus globulus, Vicia faba var. minor and Brassica oleracea var. medullosa, which grew under controlled conditions. We addressed the questions (i) do δ2Hn-alkane and δ18Osugar values allow precise reconstructions of leaf water isotope composition, (ii) how accurately does the reconstructed leaf-water-isotope composition enables relative humidity (RH) reconstruction in which the plants grew, and (iii) does the coupling of δ2Hn-alkane and δ18Osugar enable a robust source water calculation? For all investigated species, the alkane n-C29 was most abundant and therefore used for compound-specific δ2H measurements. For Vicia faba, additionally the δ2H values of n-C31 could be evaluated robustly. With regard to hemicellulose-derived monosaccharides, arabinose and xylose were most abundant and their δ18O values were therefore used to calculate weighted mean leaf δ18Osugar values. Both δ2Hn-alkane and δ18Osugar yielded significant correlations with δ2Hleaf-water and δ18Oleaf-water, respectively (r2 = 0.45 and 0.85, respectively; p

Hydrogen isotopes reveal evidence of migration of Miniopterus schreibersii in Europe

Background The Schreiber’s bat, Miniopterus schreibersii, is adapted to long-distance flight, yet long distance movements have only been recorded sporadically using capture-mark-recapture. In this study, we used the hydrogen isotopic composition of 208 wing and 335 fur specimens from across the species' European range to test the hypothesis that the species migrates over long distances. Results After obtaining the hydrogen isotopic composition (δ2H) of each sample, we performed geographic assignment tests by comparing the δ2H of samples with the δ2H of sampling sites. We found that 95 bats out of 325 showed evidence of long-distance movement, based on the analysis of either fur or wing samples. The eastern European part of the species range (Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia) had the highest numbers of bats that had moved. The assignment tests also helped identify possible migratory routes, such as movement between the Alps and the Balkans. Conclusions This is the first continental-scale study to provide evidence of migratory behaviour of M. schreibersii throughout its European range. The work highlights the need for further investigation of this behaviour to provide appropriate conservation strategies.