title: Plio-Pleistocene evolution of Bohai Basin (East Asia): demise of Bohai Paleolake and transition to marine environment.
abstract: The Bohai Basin was transformed to an inner shelf sea hundreds of thousands years ago. This youngest land-sea transition participated in the significant modification of the distribution of fresh water, sediment fluxes and climate in East Asia, and played an important role in the origin of the Asian marginal seas. Here we present the results of a magnetostratigraphic investigation and propose a conceptual model for the land-sea transition. Our findings indicate that the transition probably started several million years ago, from a fluvial system during the late Miocene and early Pliocene, to a lacustrine environment between the late Pliocene and Middle Pleistocene, and finally to a marine system in the late Pleistocene. Comparison of our results with previous research suggests that the Bohai Paleolake was initiated from the late Pliocene, was fully developed prior to ~1.0 Ma, and terminated around the late Middle Pleistocene. The Miaodao Islands formed the eastern "barrier" of the basin and since the Pliocene or earlier they played a significant role in blocking the lake water and sediments. They deformed from ~1.0 Ma, subsided significantly at ~0.3 Ma and completely by ~0.1 Ma, resulting in the maturation of the basin as an inner shelf sea.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Marine Geology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China.|Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Sanya 572000, China.|Key Laboratory of Marine Sedimentology and Environmental Geology, First Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration, Qingdao 266061, China.
authors.forename: Liang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yi
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China.|University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Chenglong
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Muddy Coastal Geo-Environment, Tianjin Centre, China Geological Survey, Tianjin 300170, China.
authors.forename: Lizhu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tian
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Marine Sedimentology and Environmental Geology, First Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration, Qingdao 266061, China.
authors.forename: Xingyong
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Muddy Coastal Geo-Environment, Tianjin Centre, China Geological Survey, Tianjin 300170, China.
authors.forename: Xingyu
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710061, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoke
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Qiang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China.
authors.forename: Huafeng
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Qin
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, China.
authors.forename: Junyi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ge
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Marine Sedimentology and Environmental Geology, First Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration, Qingdao 266061, China.
authors.forename: Guangquan
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Marine Sedimentology and Environmental Geology, First Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration, Qingdao 266061, China.
authors.forename: Qiao
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Su
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Engineering Oceanography, Second Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration, Hangzhou 310012, China.
authors.forename: Yanping
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Marine Sedimentology and Environmental Geology, First Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration, Qingdao 266061, China.
authors.forename: Xuefa
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Sanya 572000, China.
authors.forename: Qiang
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: National Deep Sea Center of China, Qingdao 266061, China.
authors.forename: Hongjun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China.
authors.forename: Rixiang
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zhu