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Paleoenvironmental implications of new OSL dates on the formation of the “Shell Bar” in the Qaidam Basin, northeastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

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Abstract

A geological feature in the Qaidam Basin known as the “Shell Bar” contains millions of freshwater clam shells buried in situ. Since the 1980s, this feature in the now hyper-arid basin has been interpreted to be lake deposits that provide evidence for a warmer and more humid climate than present during late marine isotope stage 3 (MIS 3). Global climate during late MIS 3 and the last glacial maximum, however, was cold and dry, with much lower sea levels. We re-investigated the feature geomorphologically and sedimentologically, and employed optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating to verify the chronology of the sediments. We interpret the Shell Bar to be a remnant of a river channel formed by a stream that ran across an exposed lake bed during a regressive lake phase. Deflation of the surrounding older, fine-grained lacustrine deposits has left the fluvial channel sediments topographically inverted, indicating the erosive nature of the landscape. Luminescence ages place the formation of the Shell Bar in MIS 5 (~113–99 ka), much older than previous radiocarbon ages of <40 ka BP, but place the paleoclimatic inferences more in accord with other regional and global climate proxy records. We present a brief review of the age differences derived from 14C and OSL dating of some critical sections that were thought to represent a warmer and more humid climate than present during late MIS 3. We attribute the differences to underestimation of 14C ages. We suggest that 14C ages older than ~25 ka BP may require re-investigation, especially dates on samples from arid regions.

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Acknowledgments

We thank two anonymous reviewers and the editor Mark Brenner for constructive comments. This work was supported by China NSF (41290252, 41121001), a SKLCS grant (SKLCS-ZZ-2012-01-04), and the One-Hundred Talent Project of CAS granted to ZPL (A0961).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CAS Key Laboratory of Salt Lake Resources and Chemistry, Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining, 810008, China

    ZhongPing Lai

  2. State Key Laboratory of Cryosphere Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    ZhongPing Lai

  3. Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, Universität Potsdam, 14476, Potsdam-Golm, Germany

    Steffen Mischke

  4. Institute of Geological Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin, 12249, Berlin, Germany

    Steffen Mischke

  5. Texas Archeological Research Laboratory, University of Texas, Austin, TX, 78712, USA

    David Madsen

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Lai, Z., Mischke, S. & Madsen, D. Paleoenvironmental implications of new OSL dates on the formation of the “Shell Bar” in the Qaidam Basin, northeastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. J Paleolimnol 51, 197–210 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-013-9710-1

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