A 300-kyr record of aridity and wind strength in southwestern Africa: inferences from grain-size distributions of sediments on Walvis Ridge, SE Atlantic

Stuut, Jan‐Berend; Prins, Maarten A.; Schneider, Ralph R; Weltje, Gert Jan; Jansen, J H Fred; Postma, George

doi:10.1016/s0025-3227(01)00215-8

Cited by 326 publications

(254 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…The Namib Desert is a coastal strip desert with very strong winds, especially in the south near Lüderitz (Rogers, 1977;Bremner, 1978). Grain-size studies on Quaternary sediments from the Walvis Ridge show that the aeolian dust export from Namib Desert to the South West African margin is almost exclusively supplied by the SE trade wind (Stuut et al, 2002).…”

Section: Background and Regional Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…At the Southwest African continental margin, the Orange River discharge and aeolian input from the Namib Desert are the main sources supplying terrigenous material (Gingele, 1996). Several grain-size studies stress the possibility to use the grain-size distribution pattern from deep-sea cores to determine the relative abundance of sediments deposited by hemipelagic and aeolian processes (e.g., Boven and Rea, 1998;Holz et al, 2004;Koopmann, 1981;Rea and Hovan, 1995;Stuut et al, 2002, Stuut andLamy, 2004). The grain size of the aeolian particles in deep-sea sediments depends on distance to the source and the capacity of the transporting agents.…”

Section: Long-term Modes and Major Shifts In Sedimentation Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Most deep-sea cores recovered within hundreds of kilometers off continents are characterized by fine-grained aeolian dust (2-4 μm; e.g., Boven and Rea, 1998;Rea and Hovan, 1995), while several deep- sea sediment studies located relatively close to the continent showed that aeolian dust fallout is characterized by terrigenous sediment with a modal grain size larger than 6 μm (e.g., Koopmann, 1981;Holz et al, 2004;Moreno et al, 2002;Stuut et al, 2002). This is supported by the coarse silt sized of present-day dust samples from the Namib Desert collected along transect from the coast to the core Site at MD 962094, Walvis Ridge (Stuut et al, 2002). Since the studied sites are located relatively close (few hundreds of kilometers) to the source of the wind-blown sediment, the coarse silt fraction is interpreted as aeolian origin and the fine silt to clay fractions is related to erosion and run off from the Orange River.…”

Section: Long-term Modes and Major Shifts In Sedimentation Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Controls on carbonate and terrigenous deposition in the incipient Benguela upwelling system during the middle to the late Miocene (ODP Sites 1085 and 1087)

Kastanja

Diekmann

Henrich

2006

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

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This study deals with the variability of biogenic carbonate and terrigenous depositional patterns in the Cape Basin area of the South Atlantic during the middle to the late Miocene focusing on ODP Sites 1085 and 1087 sediments at the Benguela Upwelling area, Southwest Africa. The investigations are based on grain-size analysis and clay mineralogy. The sedimentary records at both sites provide information about climate and environmental changes. The direct input of terrigenous material from southwestern Africa is driven by a complex interaction of river and wind transport, and ocean currents. The considerable amount of dust input derived from the Namib Desert started to become important after 11.2 Ma, pointing to an increased supply of cool intermediate waters to mid-latitude surface waters in the upwelling regions, which coincided with the establishment of the winddriven Benguela upwelling system. A major drop in CaCO 3 concentration between 10.4 and 10.1 Ma is caused mainly by changes in calcareous nannoplankton production, while another drop between 9.6 and 9 Ma is triggered by a combination of production changes of calcareous nannoplankton and dilution, in response to high shelf supply during global lowering of the sea level.

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Section: Background and Regional Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Long-term Modes and Major Shifts In Sedimentation Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Long-term Modes and Major Shifts In Sedimentation Patternsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Controls on carbonate and terrigenous deposition in the incipient Benguela upwelling system during the middle to the late Miocene (ODP Sites 1085 and 1087)

Kastanja

Diekmann

Henrich

2006

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology

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“…Dietze and Dietze introduced a comprehensive package for the statistical software R which allows open-source comprehensive modelling. The technique has been successfully tested ) and applied to a wide variety of environmental archives (Stuut et al, 2002;Prins et al, 2007;Dietze et al, 2014).…”

Section: Field Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental history recorded in aeolian deposits under stone pavements, Mojave Desert, USA

Dietze

Lomax

et al. 2016

Quat. res.

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Reconstructing the evolution of arid landscapes is challenged by limited availability of appropriate environmental archives. A wide-spread surface feature -stone pavement -traps aeolian fines and forms a special accretionary archive. Seven stone pavement-covered sections on basalt flows in the eastern Mojave Desert are condensed to a composite section, comprising five sedimentological units, supported by an OSL-based chronology. Three of the units are of accretionary nature and each is covered by a stone pavement. They were deposited >50.9-36.6 ka, <36.6-14.2 ka and <14.2 ka and are intimately coupled with the history of nearby Lake Mojave, which advances the current picture of regional aeolian activity. End-member modelling analysis of grain-size distributions yielded seven sediment transport regimes. The accretionary system operates in two modes: A) episodic formation of a stone pavement by lateral processes once a vesicular horizon has formed on a barren surface and B) accretion of dust and eventually burial of the clast layer. These findings improve current concepts about stone pavement evolution and their environmental proxy function in arid landscapes. Stone pavement-covered accretionary deposits are a new key archive that allows quantifying the relative importance of dust accretion, slope processes, soil formation and vegetation cover.

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“…EMMA has been successfully applied to the multimodal grain-size distributions of marine, lacustrine, and aeolian sediments mainly in the Atlantic ocean and the Asian continent (e.g. Stuut et al, 2002;Vriend and Prins, 2005;Weltje and Prins, 2007;IJmker et al, 2012;Dietze et al, 2012, where different end members were interpreted as proxies of sediment transport processes.…”

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confidence: 99%

Sediment transport processes across the Tibetan Plateau inferred from robust grain-size end members in lake sediments

et al. 2014

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Abstract. Grain-size distributions offer powerful proxies of past environmental conditions that are related to sediment sorting processes. However, they are often of multimodal character because sediments can get mixed during deposition. To facilitate the use of grain size as palaeoenvironmental proxy, this study aims to distinguish the main detrital processes that contribute to lacustrine sedimentation across the Tibetan Plateau using grain-size end-member modelling analysis. Between three and five robust grain-size end-member subpopulations were distinguished at different sites from similarly-likely end-member model runs. Their main modes were grouped and linked to common sediment transport and depositional processes that can be associated with contemporary Tibetan climate (precipitation patterns and lake ice phenology, gridded wind and shear stress data from the High Asia Reanalysis) and local catchment configurations. The coarse sands and clays with grain-size modes > 250 µm and < 2 µm were probably transported by fluvial processes. Aeolian sands (∼ 200 µm) and coarse local dust (∼ 60 µm), transported by saltation and in near-surface suspension clouds, are probably related to occasional westerly storms in winter and spring. Coarse regional dust with modes ∼ 25 µm may derive from near-by sources that keep in longer term suspension. The continuous background dust is differentiated into two robust end members (modes: 5-10 and 2-5 µm) that may represent different sources, wind directions and/or sediment trapping dynamics from long-range, upperlevel westerly and episodic northerly wind transport. According to this study grain-size end members of only fluvial origin contribute small amounts to mean Tibetan lake sedimentation (19 ± 5 %), whereas local to regional aeolian transport and background dust deposition dominate the clastic sedimentation in Tibetan lakes (contributions: 42 ± 14 % and 51 ± 11 %). However, fluvial and alluvial reworking of aeolian material from nearby slopes during summer seems to limit end-member interpretation and should be crosschecked with other proxy information. If not considered as a stand-alone proxy, a high transferability to other regions and sediment archives allows helpful reconstructions of past sedimentation history.

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A 300-kyr record of aridity and wind strength in southwestern Africa: inferences from grain-size distributions of sediments on Walvis Ridge, SE Atlantic

Cited by 326 publications

References 32 publications

Controls on carbonate and terrigenous deposition in the incipient Benguela upwelling system during the middle to the late Miocene (ODP Sites 1085 and 1087)

Controls on carbonate and terrigenous deposition in the incipient Benguela upwelling system during the middle to the late Miocene (ODP Sites 1085 and 1087)

Environmental history recorded in aeolian deposits under stone pavements, Mojave Desert, USA

Sediment transport processes across the Tibetan Plateau inferred from robust grain-size end members in lake sediments

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