Loess Plateau storage of Northeastern Tibetan Plateau-derived Yellow River sediment

Abstract

Marine accumulations of terrigenous sediment are widely assumed to accurately record climatic- and tectonic-controlled mountain denudation and play an important role in understanding late Cenozoic mountain uplift and global cooling. Underpinning this is the assumption that the majority of sediment eroded from hinterland orogenic belts is transported to and ultimately stored in marine basins with little lag between erosion and deposition. Here we use a detailed and multi-technique sedimentary provenance dataset from the Yellow River to show that substantial amounts of sediment eroded from Northeast Tibet and carried by the river's upper reach are stored in the Chinese Loess Plateau and the western Mu Us desert. This finding revises our understanding of the origin of the Chinese Loess Plateau and provides a potential solution for mismatches between late Cenozoic terrestrial sedimentation and marine geochemistry records, as well as between global CO2 and erosion records.

Erosion patterns in the Changjiang (Yangtze River) catchment revealed by bulk-sample versus single-mineral provenance budgets

“…Trunk-river sands are progressively enriched along the middle and lower reaches but the orogenic signal is carried as far as the East China Sea. As shown in inset, this holds true also for the Huang He (Yellow River; data after Nie et al, 2015). Sediments supplied to the Chinese passive margin thus plot largely in the 'Recycled Orogen' field of Dickinson (1985).…”

Dominant 100,000-year precipitation cyclicity in a late Miocene lake from northeast Tibet

“…However, this inference is in contradiction with the widely held idea of Late Miocene Asian drying, which is based on increased dust accumulation in the North Pacific Ocean ( 40 ) and the onset of loess accumulation on the central CLP around 8 Ma ( 41 , 42 ). Recent studies reveal that CLP dust does not necessarily come from deserts and that increased dust accumulation does not necessarily indicate inland Asian aridification ( 43 – 46 ). This is because tectonic deformation can produce dust for wind to entrain and transport downwind ( 44 , 47 ).…”

Tracing provenance and sediment fluxes in the Irrawaddy River basin (Myanmar)

“…Appendix Table A4. Sources as for Figure 8, also including data after Garzanti et al (2005), Nie et al (2015) and Garzanti and Resentini (2016). …”