A middle Pleistocene to Holocene perspective on sediment sources for the Tengger Desert, China

Abstract

Dust plays a critical role in global biogeochemical and carbon cycles. The deserts of northern China have been important East Asian dust sources throughout the Quaternary. The Tengger Desert, one such major arid dust-producing region in northern China, is thought to have started resembling its current form during the middle to late Pleistocene. As such, understanding the nature of the Tengger Desert’s formation and the associated import, storage, and export of sediments are consequential for the regional, and potentially global, climate. The U-Pb detrital zircon geochronology data reported here from both present-day and middle to late Pleistocene Tengger Desert sediments support derivation from the Shiyang River system sourced from the Qilian Mountains mixed with sediments eroded from local basement uplifts and Gobi Altay sources. This interpretation is different from the view that sediments of this age were primarily transported to the Tengger Desert from the arid East Asian continental interior upwind. We note that this analysis suggests a common provenance for Quaternary sediments in the Tengger, Badain Jaran, and Mu Us Deserts wherein these deserts received riverine-sourced sediments from the Qilian Mountains and northeastern Tibetan Plateau. This observation highlights the importance of precipitation at elevation along the present-day margin of the East Asian summer monsoon in driving sediment supply during the middle to late Quaternary desertification within the East Asian continental interior.