High-resolution absolute-dated Indian Monsoon record between 53 and 36 ka from Xiaobailong Cave, southwestern China
- Yanjun Cai1,
- Zhisheng An1,
- Hai Cheng2,
- R. Lawrence Edwards2,
- Megan J. Kelly2,
- Weiguo Liu3,
- Xianfeng Wang4 and
- Chuan-Chou Shen5
- 1State Key Lab of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710075, China
- 2Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
- 3State Key Lab of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710075, China
- 4Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, USA
- 5Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University, Taipei 106, Taiwan, China
Abstract
The oxygen isotopic record of stalagmite XBL-1 from southwestern China reveals millennial-scale variability of the Indian Monsoon between 53 and 36 ka, synchronous with changes in the East Asian Monsoon recorded at Hulu Cave and similar to Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles recorded in Greenland ice. Our record, in general, confirms the chronology of Hulu Cave. If our correlations between Greenland and the Xiaobailong Cave record are correct, both the Greenland Ice Sheet Project 2 and Greenland Ice Core Project (ss09sea) chronologies are accurate within quoted errors. A dry interval that we correlate with Heinrich Event 5 (H5) and the Greenland stadial preceding Greenland Interstadial 12 (GIS 12) is centered ca. 48.0 ka and a shift to drier conditions, correlated to the end of GIS 12, is ca. 43.5 ka. Overall, the variability of the Indian Monsoon, from XBL-1 data, on millennial scales is similar to and correlated with high-latitude ice core rec ords from the Northern Hemisphere. However, some Indian Monsoon characteristics more closely resemble, but are anticorrelated with, features in the Antarctic record, suggesting some link to climate of the high southern latitudes, in addition to the clear link to the climate of the high northern latitudes.
- southwest China
- stalagmite
- U-series dating
- δ18O
- paleoclimate
- absolute chronology
- Indian summer monsoon
- Chinese Interstadials
Footnotes
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↵GSA Data Repository item 2006128, supplementary information on 230Th dating results (Table DR1), cave and sample descriptions, sample image (Figure DR1), subsampling method and isotope measurement (Figures DR2 and DR3), and Hendy Test (Figures DR4 and DR5), is available online at www.geosociety.org/pubs/ft2006.htm, or on request from editing{at}geosociety.org or Documents Secretary, GSA, P.O. Box 9140, Boulder, CO 80301, USA.
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- Accepted 12 March 2006.
- Received 10 January 2006.
- Revision received 8 March 2006.
- Geological Society of America
