title: Abrupt sand-dune accumulation at the northeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau challenges the wet MIS3a inferred from numerous lake-highstands.
abstract: Over the Tibetan Plateau and adjacent regions, numerous (14)C-based lake records revealed a ubiquitous wet climatic period during 40-25 ka (late MIS 3), which is in contradiction with the global pattern of generally cold and dry climates. This paper focuses on OSL dating results of a large set of sand dunes and alluvial sediments (50 OSL ages) from the Qinwangchuan (QWC) Basin at the northeast edge of the Tibetan Plateau, with the aim to test the validity of the anomalous wet condition for the late MIS 3 interval, evidenced by numerous lake highstands. The abrupt sand dune accumulation as indication of increased aridity in the study area was OSL dated to ~40-13 ka. This dry climatic inference of the sand dune system from QWC apparently shows no wet MIS 3a event. Thus, the anomalous wet conditions revealed by high lake levels for the late MIS 3 phase may not be a universal phenomena across entire western China.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Lake Science and Environment, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGLAS), 210008 Nanjing, China.|Geochronology and Isotope Hydrology, Leibniz Institute for Applied Geophysics (LIAG), 30655 Hannover, Germany.
authors.forename: Hao
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Long
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, 35390 Giessen, Germany.
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fuchs
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Desert and Desertification, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 730000 Lanzhou, China.
authors.forename: Linhai
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, 730000 Lanzhou, China.
authors.forename: Hongyi
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cheng