Abstract
A series of seven piston cores from the Huguang maar lake situated near
the South China Sea coastline provides insight into regional
palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic changes in southern China over
the last 78,000 years. The data set comprises a high-resolution record
of magnetic susceptibility, dry density and water content, total organic
carbon and inorganic carbon, total nitrogen, biogenic silica (BSiO2), and palynological results. The time scale was developed by AMS 14C
dating of 17 terrestrial plant macro-fossils. During the Last Glacial
the Huguang record is characterised by an alternation of more temperate
and humid periods (from 78 to 58 and 48 to 40.5 ka BP) and periods with predominance of grassland vegetation and possibly lowered lake level (from 58 to 48 and ca 40.5 to 15 ka BP).
The Huguang data have been compared to regional marine and terrestrial
records in order to discuss variability of the South-East Asian monsoon
system. For most of the Last Glacial period the Huguang proxies do not
exhibit marked millennial-scale variability as known from some long SE
Asian and many North Atlantic records. This picture changes at about 15 cal ka BP
when the Huguang and Greenland records appear to correlate well. A
short climatic reversal which is assumed to reflect a Younger Dryas-type
event is well recorded in the Huguang record. During the Holocene the
Huguang multi-proxy data show a much higher variability than during the
Last Glacial stage probably reflecting, at least for the early
mid-Holocene, fluctuations in monsoon activity. However, the last 4000
years of the sediment record are clearly influenced by enhanced human
activity and thus difficult to interpret in terms of palaeoclimate
change.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 85-107 |
Journal | Quaternary International |
Volume | 122 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2004 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |
Keywords
- palaeoclimate change
- climate change
- paleohydrogeology
- China