A late Pleistocene and Holocene mineral magnetic record from sediments of Lake Aibi, Dzungarian Basin, NW China

Abstract

We studied mineral magnetic properties of a 6-m-long, late Pleistocene through Holocene sediment sequence from Lake Aibi in Dzungaria (Zunggary, Junggar), northern Xinjiang, China. Results were used to infer environmental changes and are compared with previously studied cores from Lake Manas. Both water bodies occupy the deepest parts of the Dzungarian Basin and are remnants of large Holocene lakes. During the Late Pleistocene, the magnetic mineralogy in both lakes was dominated by detrital, iron oxide minerals. Oxic conditions, which dominated during sedimentation and early diagenesis, persisted over the Pleistocene–Holocene transition. Later, during the middle Holocene, lake bottom conditions enabled authigenic formation of iron sulphide minerals such as pyrite (FeS2) in Lake Aibi, and pyrite and greigite (Fe3S4) in Lake Manas. This iron sulphide mineralogy suggests increased biological activity in stagnant, anoxic bottom waters. Anoxic bottom conditions started about 9.8 cal kyr BP in Lake Manas and at about 7.2 cal kyr BP in Lake Aibi. A short dry event recorded in Lake Manas between 6.8 and 5.2 cal kyr BP is not clearly observed in Lake Aibi. In the late Holocene, i.e. the last 2.8 cal kyr, sediments of both lakes are again characterised by iron oxides, suggesting well-mixed, shallow water bodies. For this recent period, it seems that the detrital material in the two lakes had a common origin. Magnetic properties of sediments in Lakes Aibi and Manas show broadly similar environmental evolution during the late Pleistocene and Holocene. Nevertheless, despite the close proximity of the two lakes (~200 km) in the same basin, they display some different magnetic properties and record environmental changes at different times.