Luminescence chronology of loess-palaeosol deposits in the Central Shandong Mountains region: Provenances and paleoclimate implications

A comprehensive dataset of luminescence chronologies and environmental proxy indices of loess-paleosol deposits across Asia

“…Agedepth models were generated at 1-2 cm intervals and span the past 250 ka. All age-depth models for loess sequences are generated considering the discontinuity in deposition due to hiatus in ages with depth, which becomes apparent with highresolution luminescence dating of loess-paleosol sequences 2,9,10,16,17,25,27,30,41 . The error on age-depth modeling of loess-paleosol sequences varies between 1 and 7% for Pleistocene records, and yields an average error of 3.52 ± 0.23% (n = 36).…”

“…Loess in Asia is mainly distributed across arid and semiarid regions of mid-latitude Central and East Asia, with some sporadic distribution in Western Asia 4 . These regions include the northern Iranian loess plateau 5 , piedmont regions of the high mountains in Central Asia and NW China 2 , Chinese Central Loess Plateau 6 , NE China 7 , the Tibetan Plateau 8 and some coastal regions of the Shandong Peninsula 9 , and southwestern and northeastern Siberia 10 . Loess-paleosol sequences from the Chinese Central Loess Plateau have long been regarded as globally important archives for paleoclimatic and environmental changes due to their relatively continuous and high dust deposition rates on both orbital and suborbital timescales, thus consequently acting as sensitive archives of the interplay of the East Asian summer and winter monsoon (EASM and EAWM, respectively) 6,[11][12][13][14] .…”

“…Luminescence dating techniques, which include the widely used optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and infrared stimulated luminescence (IRSL), determine the ages of eolian deposits by directly measuring last exposure of quartz or feldspar minerals to light, and thereby the depositional process 23 . Quartz OSL dating is now widely applied to the dating of late Quaternary sediments 24 , and has been successfully used to establish the chronology of loess records from different regions of Asia 2,5,[8][9][10]16,17,[25][26][27][28] . Owing to the luminescence signal saturation characteristics of the quartz mineral, it has been observed that quartz OSL dating can be used to reliably date loess samples up to 50-60 ka from the Chinese Central Loess Plateau and up to 40-70 ka for samples from Tibetan Plateau and Central Asia 16,17,[29][30][31][32][33] .…”

Climatic changes inferred from the chroma and magnetic susceptibility of aeolian deposits in the Central Shandong Mountains over the penultimate interglacial period

“…In addition to the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP), the Shandong Province has preserved the sedimentary sequence of loess-palaeosol [3], which is far from the inland deserts, having potential in researching both global and regional climatic changes. Systematic studies on the sedimentology [8], provenance [9], chronology and palaeoclimatology [10] of the Shandong loess have achieved a relatively and unified understanding of the regional palaeoclimatology since the last glacial period. However, there is a lack of research on penultimate interglacial period palaeosols, which restricts to understand the palaeoclimatic change processes and the patterns of the period.…”