Late Quaternary glacial history of the Altyn Tagh Range, northern Tibetan Plateau

Quantifying the timing and extent of late Quaternary glaciations across the Tibetan Plateau (TP) is critical to understanding regional and global climate changes. Despite significant advancements in our knowledge of glacial histories of the TP over the past several decades, chronological constraints...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology
Main Authors: Dong, Guocheng, Yi, Chaolu, Zhou, Weijian, Xu, Xiangke, Fu, Yunchong
Format: Report
Language:English
Published: ELSEVIER 2021
Subjects:
Last glacial
Cosmogenic dating
Moraine chronology
Paleoclimate
Mid-latitude westerlies
BE-10 SURFACE EXPOSURE
LATE PLEISTOCENE GLACIATIONS
NUCLIDE PRODUCTION-RATES
EASTERN TIAN-SHAN
SHALULI SHAN
CLIMATIC DRIVERS
COSMOGENIC BE-10
KANAS VALLEY
DOME-C
MOUNTAINS
Physical Geography
Geology
Paleontology
Geography
Physical
Geosciences
Multidisciplinary
Altyn
North Atlantic
Online Access:http://ir.ieecas.cn/handle/361006/16894
http://ir.ieecas.cn/handle/361006/16895
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2021.110561
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Summary:Quantifying the timing and extent of late Quaternary glaciations across the Tibetan Plateau (TP) is critical to understanding regional and global climate changes. Despite significant advancements in our knowledge of glacial histories of the TP over the past several decades, chronological constraints are still lacking for the high glaciated mountain ranges on the northern TP, including the Altyn Tagh Range. In this study, we provide thirty-two new Be-10 exposure-ages to construct a late Quaternary glacial history of the Altyn Tagh Range at the Altyn "Pass" and Akato Tagh. The dating results from Altyn "Pass" indicate that glacier might have fully melted out of this area after Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3). The tentatively-defined minimum moraine ages north of Akato Tagh show that four glacial culminations possibly occurred during MIS 5, MIS 4, MIS 3 or 2, and the late Holocene. These dating results, together with the compiled exposure-ages from Sulamu Tagh, imply that the last glacial glacier fluctuations along the Altyn Tagh Range were likely driven by several factors: North Atlantic climate oscillations, northern hemispheric high-latitude summer solar insolation, atmospheric CO2 concentrations, and geometry of glacier catchment. The progressive reduction in glacier extent during the last glacial is likely associated with available precipitation, controlled by the mid-latitude westerlies.

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