TY  - JOUR
A1  - Meijer, Niels
A1  - Dupont-Nivet, Guillaume
A1  - Abels, Hemmo A.
A1  - Kaya, Mustafa Y.
A1  - Licht, Alexis
A1  - Xiao, Meimei
A1  - Zhang, Yang
A1  - Roperch, Pierrick
A1  - Poujol, Marc
A1  - Lai, Zhongping
A1  - Guo, Zhaojie
T1  - Central Asian moisture modulated by proto-Paratethys Sea incursions since the early Eocene
JF  - Earth and planetary science letters
N2  - The establishment and evolution of the Asian monsoons and arid interior have been linked to uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, retreat of the inland proto-Paratethys Sea and global cooling during the Cenozoic. However, the respective role of these driving mechanisms remains poorly constrained. This is partly due to a lack of continental records covering the key Eocene epoch marked by the onset of Tibetan Plateau uplift, proto-Paratethys Sea incursions and long-term global cooling. In this study, we reconstruct paleoenvironments in the Xining Basin, NE Tibet, to show a long-term drying of the Asian continental interior from the early Eocene to the Oligocene. Superimposed on this trend are three alternations between arid mudflat and wetter saline lake intervals, which are interpreted to reflect atmospheric moisture fluctuations in the basin. We date these fluctuations using magnetostratigraphy and the radiometric age of an intercalated tuff layer. The first saline lake interval is tentatively constrained to the late Paleocene-early Eocene. The other two are firmly dated between similar to 46 Ma (top magnetochron C21n) and similar to 41 Ma (base C18r) and between similar to 40 Ma (base C18n) and similar to 37 Ma (top C17n). Remarkably, these phases correlate in time with highstands of the proto-Paratethys Sea. This strongly suggests that these sea incursions enhanced westerly moisture supply as far inland as the Xining Basin. We conclude that the proto-Paratethys Sea constituted a key driver of Asian climate and should be considered in model and proxy interpretations. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
KW  - Paleogene
KW  - magnetostratigraphy
KW  - Central Asia
KW  - Xining Basin
KW  - westerlies
KW  - Asian monsoon
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2018.12.031
SN  - 0012-821X
SN  - 1385-013X
VL  - 510
SP  - 73
EP  - 84
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  -