Millennial-scale East Asian Summer Monsoon variability recorded in grain size and provenance of mud belt sediments on the inner shelf of the East China Sea during mid-to late Holocene

Abstract

The response of the monsoon climate on the inner shelf of the East China Sea (ECS) to abrupt climate changes events within the monsoonal Yangtze River drainage is contentious. Repositioning of the monsoon front is thought to have been responsible for the changes in hydroclimate over the Yangtze River drainage, which has exerted great impact on the sedimentation of the inner shelf of the ECS during the Holocene. Here, we present high-resolution analyses of grain size and provenance of the sediments from core MD06-3040 recovered from the inner shelf of the ECS during MD155-Marco Polo II-IMAGES XIV cruise. Significant variability occurred in the core MD06-3040 with notable decrease in East Asian Summer Monsoon precipitation (presumably drought events) at 6000 BP, 5300 BP, 4500 BP, 3700–3300 BP, 2200 BP, 1400–1300 BP, and 800–600 BP, which coincide with the δ18Ow record in the northern ECS and stalagmite Δδ18Osp records from southern China. Similar patterns of these temporal variations suggest that the Yangtze River discharge associated with EASM precipitation has been a dominant control on the sedimentation on the inner shelf of ECS.