Quaternary sediment sources and loess transport pathways in the Black Sea - Caspian Sea region identified by detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology

• Published in: Global and Planetary Change
• Main Authors: Költringer, Chiara, Stevens, Thomas, Lindner, Martin, Baykal, Yunus, Ghafarpour, Amin, Khormali, Farhad, Taratunina, Natalia, Kurbanov, Redzhep
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Luft-, vatten- och landskapslära 2022
• Subjects: Detrital zircon Usingle bondPb dating; Loess; Provenance; Sediment routing; East European Plain; Caspian Sea; Geosciences; Multidisciplinary; Multidisciplinär geovetenskap; glacier
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-464075; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2022.103736

Constraining the controls on the distribution of sediment at a continental scale is a critical step in understandinglong-term landscape and climate evolution. In particular, understanding of the role of rivers in wider sedimentrouting and impacts on aeolian loess formation on a continental scale remains limited. Extensive Quaternaryloess deposits are present on the East European Plain and in the Black Sea - Caspian Sea region and are associatedwith major rivers draining numerous surrounding cratonic and orogenic hinterland areas. Coupled with this,complex changes in local and global sea level have affected the extent and drainage of the Caspian Sea and theBlack Sea, and Quaternary glaciations have impinged on the northern margin of the East European Plain. Thissuggests that sediment routing and loess formation may show complex patterns and controls. Here, we applyU–Pb dating of detrital zircons from fluvial, marine and aeolian (dominantly loess) sedimentary records on theEast European Plain and in the Black Sea - Caspian Sea region. This shows a strong control of large rivers on thedistribution of sediments at a continental scale in the region, through long-distance transport of several 1000 km,sourced from continental and mountain glacier areas prior to marine or atmospheric reworking and trans-portation. Strong spatial variability in zircon U–Pb data from loess deposits on the East European Plain revealsmultiple diverse sources to the different individual loess sections, whereas no significant temporal variability inloess source is detected during the Late Pleistocene of the Lower Volga loess in South Russia. While the sedimentsupply from glacial areas via rivers plays an important role for the provenance of East European Plain loessdeposits, our data indicate that the stark spatial diversity in loess provenance on the East European Plain is oftendriven by the input of multiple local sources. Similar to the loess, marine sediments from different basins of theBlack Sea and the Caspian Sea also show significant ...