Late Quaternary Asian Monsoon Dynamics Recorded in Tibetan Lake Systems by Compound-Specific Isotopes of Terrestrial and Aquatic Biomarkers
Monday, June 15, 2015: 10:00 AM
Franziska Günther1, Stefan Schouten2,3, Roland Mäusbacher4, Baiqing Xu5, Tandong Yao5 and Gerd Gleixner1, (1)Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany, (2)NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Department of Marine Organic Biogeochemistry, Texel, Netherlands, (3)Utrecht University, Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht, Netherlands, (4)Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany, (5)ITP Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Abstract:
The Asian monsoon is an important component of the climate system and directly influences the environmental and hydrological conditions at the Tibetan Plateau. This project is part of a joint multi-proxy research activity reconstructing the late Quaternary Monsoon dynamics. We follow a multi-archive study on lake systems and their catchments on the Tibetan Plateau (e.g. Nam Co, Tangra Yumco, Taro Co) which reflect local to regional climatic and non-climatic impacts. In particular, we apply various organic geochemical proxies to reconstruct monsoon-forced hydrological and environmental changes back to the Last Glacial Maximum. Glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) are used as a temperature proxy, while the hydrogen isotopes (δD) of n-alkanes are used as a hydrological proxy. The δD values of the aquatic n-alkane C23 are used to retrace the strength of evaporative enrichment in the lake and the δD values of the terrestrial n-alkane C29 are used to record the strength of monsoonal precipitation. Furthermore, we propose process studies that provide a base for an in-depth understanding of driving forces and the interpretation of proxy data. The paleoclimatological information from Tibetan lake archives will help to understand basic underlying climatic and ecological processes.
