title: Uplift-driven sediment redness decrease at ~16.5 Ma in the Yumen Basin along the northeastern Tibetan Plateau.
abstract: Significant climate shifts in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau have taken place during the Cenozoic, but the reasons behind them remain unclear. In order to unravel the mechanisms driving these climate changes, proxy data with accurate age constraint are needed. Here we present magnetostratigraphy, sediment color (redness a*, and lightness L*) and grain-size analysis from an early to middle Miocene (~20-15.3 Ma) sediment sequence preserved in the Yumen Basin on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau. In this basin, remarkable increase in lightness, decreases in redness and in ratio of hematite (Hm) to goethite (Gt) took place at ~16.5 Ma. We suggest that these changes result from shorter duration of weathering, climatic wetting, and cooling associated with rapid uplift of the Qilian Shan at the middle Miocene.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Weitao
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing, China.|School of Earth Science and Geological Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Peizhen
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Wenjun
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Dewen
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Caicai
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Hongyan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Huiping
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Jingxing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Jianzhang
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pang