Relationship between pollen assemblages and organic geochemical proxies and the response to climate change in the Zhuye Lake sediments

This paper examines the relationship among organic geochemical proxies （TOC, C/N ratio and ~13C） and pollen assemblages in Zhuye Lake sediments since the Late Glacial. Results show that the reaction extent of organic geochemical proxies and pollen as- semblages to environment changes are different. Organic geochemical proxies are sensitive to overall environmental change, while pollen assemblages indicate detailed information of environmental change. For the entire sedimentary section （except the sand layer fi＇om the bottom of the section）, when values of TOC, C/N ratio and total pollen concentrations are high, 813C values are low, and vice versa. The different responses of organic geochemical proxies and pollen records in Zhuye Lake are mainly due to their different sensitivity and diverse influencing factors in different environmental conditions.

Reworking effects in the Holocene Zhuye Lake sediments:A case study by pollen concentrates AMS ^(14)C dating

Transported by wind and water,the relatively old sediments can deposit in the terminal lake of an inland drainage basin.The reworking effect can affect the lake sediments 14 C dating and explanations for proxies.The Zhuye Lake is the terminal lake of the Shiyang River Basin.Previous studies indicated that sediments in different locations of the lake basin showed different climatic change patterns.And then,some radiocarbon dates were inverted for some Late Pleistocene sections.Whether this phenomenon is related with the reworking effect? The pollen concentrates 14 C dating can avoid the reservoir effect,which is an ideal method for studying the reworking effect.In this study,we used the pollen concentrates as dating materials and dated five Holocene sections in the Zhuye Lake Basin.Based on the 14 C dates comparison between the pollen concentrates,organic matter,and shells,the pollen concentrates dates are relatively older than other dating materials.Based on the result,the reworking effect worked in the Zhuye Lake Basin during the Holocene;however,in different locations of the lake basin the reworking effects were in different levels.Furthermore,the Holocene lacustrine deposits were formed mostly during the early and middle Holocene.This study provided clues for reworking effect studies of other lakes in arid China.

Holocene Climate Cycles in Northwest Margin of Asian Monsoon

In the mid-latitude regions of the Asian continent, Zhuye Lake is located in the northwest margin of the Asian monsoon, where the modem climate is affected by the Asian monsoon and Westerlies. In this study, we investi- gated the absolutely dated Holocene records in Zhuye Lake for detecting the Holocene climate cycles. Totally, 14 14C dates and 6 optically simulated luminescence （OSL） dates are obtained from the QTH01 and QTH02 sections. The proxies of grain-size, total organic carbon content （TOC）, C/N and 813C are used for wavelet analysis, and the results show obvious -256, -512 and -1024-year climate cycles, which are consistent with the Holocene millennial and cen- tennial scale climate cycles in the typical Asian summer monsoon domain. In different parts of the Zhuye Lake, the Holocene sediments show variable climate cycles that are affected by the lake basin topography. In the Zhuye Lake, the Holocene climate cycles are mainly correlated with the solar-related Asian summer monsoon variability and the North Atlantic ice-rafting events.

Lake evaporation： A possible factor affecting lake level changes tested by mod- ern observational data in arid and semi-arid China

Qinghai Lake and Zhuye Lake, -400 km apart, are located in the northwest margin of the Asian summer monsoon. Water of these two lakes mostly comes from the middle and eastern parts of the Qilian Mountains. Previous studies show that the Holocene climate changes of the two lakes implied from lake records are different. Whether lake evaporation plays a role in asynchronous Holocene climate changes is important to understand the lake records. In this paper, we used modern observations beside Qinghai Lake and Zhuye Lake to test the impact factors for lake evaporation. Pan evaporation near the two lakes is mainly related to relative humidity, temperature, vapor pressure and sunshine duration. But tem- perature has different impacts to lake evaporation of the two lakes, which can affect Holocene millennial-scale lake level changes. In addition, differences in relative humidity on the millen- nial-scale would be more significant, which also can contribute to asynchronous lake records.