Occurrence of Middle Miocene Fossil Cyprinid Fish in the Northern Qaidam Basin and its Paleoenvironmental Implications

With a thick sequence of early Eocene to Pleistocene terrestrial records, the Qaidam Basin on the northern Tibetan Plateau provides an important sedimentary archive for understanding the paleoenvironmental evolution of the northeast Tibetan Plateau. In this study, specimens of fossil fish remains are collected from the late Middle Miocene（Serravallian, -12 Ma） of the middle member of the Shang Youshashan Formation, Dahonggou（DHG） section, in the northern Qaidam Basin. Based on a systematic study of these materials, the remains have assigned to Cyprinidae, with typical pharyngeal teeth and dorsal fin spines with serrations on the posterior edge. Our discovery improves understanding of the cyprinid fish distribution characteristics in the Qaidam Basin during the Cenozoic. Cooccurrences of terrestrial brackish ostracod species Cyprideis and long chain alkenonesin the layer indicate that the studied cyprinid fish lived in a generally large brackish to saline water body during the late middle Miocene（Serravallian）, when the climate of Qaidam Basin was still not sufficiently dry to form an extreme saline water lake.

Cenozoic Evolution of Sediments and Climate Change and Response to Tectonic Uplift of the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau

Through a comprehensive study of magnetostratigraphy and sedimentology of several basins in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau,we reveal that the study area mainly experienced six tectonic uplift stages at approximately 52 Ma,34-30 Ma,24-20 Ma,16-12 Ma,8-6 Ma,and 3.6-2.6 Ma.Comprehensive analyses of pollen assemblages from the Qaidam,Linxia,Xining,and West Jiuquan Basins show that the northeastern Tibetan Plateau has undergone six major changes in vegetation types and climate：50-40 Ma for the warm-humid forest vegetation,40-23 Ma for the warm-arid and temperate-arid forest steppe vegetation,23-18.6 Ma for the warm-humid and temperate-humid forest vegetation,18.6-8.5 Ma for the warm-humid and cool-humid forest steppe vegetation,8.6-5 Ma for the temperate sub-humid savanna steppe vegetation,and 5-1.8 Ma for the cold-arid steppe vegetation.Comprehensive comparisons of tectonic uplift events inferred from sedimentary records,climatic changes inferred from pollen,and global climate changes show that in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau the climate in the Paleogene at low altitude was mainly controlled by the global climate change,while that in the Neogene interval with high altitude landscapes of mountains and basins is more controlled by altitude and morphology.