Bond events in the Tarim Basin: The loess record

Abstract

Regional responses to Bond events during the Holocene are important components of paleoclimate and environmental change research. However, there are few records of Bond events during the Holocene in arid central Asia; such events remain poorly understood in this region because of a lack of continuous and high-resolution deposits. Here, new magnetic and grain-size records from a loess sediment sequence located on the southern margin of the Tarim Basin (TB) are provided, which exhibit strengthened dust activity at 9.6–9.4, 8.2–7.8, and 5.5–5.2 ka BP. These periods of strengthened dust activity during the early and middle Holocene in the TB are consistent with Bond events revealed from ice raft detritus in the North Atlantic, and abrupt climate events recorded by loess deposits, lake deposits, and stalagmite oxygen isotopes in arid central Asia and east Asia. We suggest that a delayed seasonal jet transition, resulting from the intensification and southward-shift of the westerly jet during Bond events, plays a key role in creating conditions in the TB that favor strengthened dust activity.