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A 10.35-m-long sediment core from the Luobei depression in Lop-Nur, Xinjiang, Northwest China, provides detailed information about environmental changes during the Late Pleistocene. The samples taken every 5 cm of the core were analyzed for 10 environmental proxies, including magnetic susceptibility, granularity, chroma, carbonate and loss on ignition (LOI), and pH value. The chronology data are provided by the uranium/thorium disequilibrium dates. The sediments of the section were deposited during the last 32000 years. The results of analysis of 10 proxies were examined using multivariate statistical analysis, and the principal components were calculated. According to the results, the Late Pleistocene sequence contains four climatic and environmental stages appearing in the cycles of cold-wet and warm-dry changes. During 10-9 ka BP, it was the earliest warm episode in the Holocene. Environmental changes in this district were restricted by global change, as suggested by the analysis of glacial-interglacial cycles. But it was different from the mutative trend of a monsoon region in East China because of its own characteristics, which was the situation of cold-wet and warm-dry climate-environment change. The candidate reason may be the uplift of the Tibet Plateau and the westerly wind circulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A 9.35-m long sediment core, CK2, that covers the time span between 31.98 and 9.14 kilo annum before present (ka BP) at the Luobei Depression (Lop Nur, Eastern Xinjiang, Northwest China) was studied by pollen analysis. The pollen assemblages of coniferous trees, temperate deciduous trees, herbs, and shrubs can be divided into the following four stages: Zone I (31.98ka BP to 19.26ka BP) corresponds to a steppe or desert steppe landscape, which conforms to the cold-wet climatic environment of the Last Glacial Maximum; Zone II (19.26ka BP to 13.67ka BP) corresponds to a steppe–desert or desert landscape, which conforms to the warm-arid climatic environment of the transient interglacial period; Zones III (13.67ka BP to 12.73ka BP) and IV (12.73ka BP to 9.14ka BP) are similar to Zones I and II, respectively, corresponding to the late last glacial and post last glacial, i.e., Early Holocene, respectively. The climatic environment in Lop Nur was increasingly getting drier based on Artemisia/Chenopodiaceae ratios of ≤0.5 in Subzones IVa and IVc. The Heinrich cold events (H3, H2, H1, and YD) and the Dansgaard–Oeschger warm events (IS4, IS3, IS2, IS1) with millennial-scale changes appearing at high latitudes can also be found in the pollen records of Lop Nur. Results show that the climate characteristics of the Lop Nur region are mainly controlled by the westerly belt, as displayed in mainly cold-wet or warm-arid synchronization. These climate characteristics differ from those of the monsoon area, which are mainly displayed in cold-arid and warm-wet synchronization but also restricted by the atmospheric circulation at high latitudes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]