palaeo moisture evolution in monsoonal central asia during the last 50 000 years abstract the late quaternary climate history of monsoonal central asia was inferred from 75 palaeoclimatic records which provide information about moisture conditions in the last 50 ka or part of this period wet conditions occurred during middle and late marine isotope stage 3 while the last glacial maximum lgm was characterized by dry climate conditions in the region a stepwise climate amelioration is suggested by the climate records following the lgm several climate signals of this period which were reported from high latitude ice core records are preserved in archives from monsoonal central asia as well during the early holocene high effective moisture was inferred from most records from the area dominated by the indian monsoon e g the tibetan plateau suggesting that holocene optimal climate conditions occurred there during this period in contrast areas which are dominated by the south east asian monsoon se monsoon and the westerlies in north western and north central china mongolia do not uniformly show an early holocene climate optimum for this area optimal conditions prevailed during the mid holocene these apparent contradictions can possibly be explained by the regional uplift and descent of air masses in the holocene during the early holocene strengthened insolation possibly caused an enhanced low level convergence over the tibetan plateau which led to the intensification of the summer monsoon the strong air uplift caused intensified precipitation and air divergence in the upper troposphere over the tibetan plateau the areas adjacent to the north therefore experienced an intensified descent of air masses and consequently increased aridity the majority of the palaeoclimatic records suggest reduced effective moisture since the late holocene in the region

insolation values for the climate of the last 10 million years new values for the astronomical parameters of the earth s orbit and rotation eccentricity obliquity and precession are proposed for paleoclimatic research related to the late miocene the pliocene and the quaternary they have been obtained from a numerical solution of the lagrangian system of the planetary point masses and from an analytical solution of the poisson equations of the earth moon system the analytical expansion allows the direct determination of the main frequencies with their phase and amplitude numerical and analytical comparisons with the former astronomical solution ber78 are performed so that the accuracy and the interval of time over which the new solution is valid can be estimated the corresponding insolation values have also been computed this analysis leads to the conclusion that the new values are expected to be reliable over the last 5 ma in the time domain and at least over the last 10 ma in the frequency domain

a high resolution stalagmite record of the holocene east asian monsoon from mt shennongjia central china high resolution oxygen isotope 18o profiles of six stalagmites from sanbao cave in hubei province central china established with 1413 oxygen isotope data and 65 230th ages provide a continuous history of east asian summer monsoon easm intensity for the period from 13 0 2 thousand years before present ky bp relative to ad 1950 the 18o record includes four distinct stages in the evolution of the easm 1 an abrupt transition 11 5 ky bp into the holocene 2 a period of gradual increase in monsoon intensity 11 5 9 5 ky bp 3 the maximum humid period 9 5 6 5 ky bp and 4 a period of gradual decline in monsoon intensity 6 5 0 2 ky bp comparison of sanbao with regional records of comparable resolution reveals that the timing of the beginning and end of the holocene optimum as defined by the minimum in 18 o was similar in the indian and east asian monsoon systems this supports the idea that shifts in the monsoon tied to shifts in the mean position of the inter tropical convergen

holocene fire history in eastern monsoonal region of china and its controls abstract for the first time we synthesized the fire history for the eastern monsoonal region of china during the holocene through the combined analyses of paleofire indices including both charcoal and black carbon records from 14 localities available at present our results show that in eastern china fire activity was relatively higher before 9500 cal yr bp very low between 9500 and 7500 cal yr bp and evidently increased since 7500 cal yr bp reaching its maximum at about 2000 cal yr bp this general pattern of fire activity closely follows the holocene effective moisture evolution in the eastern monsoonal china at an orbital timescale i e more fires occurred during drier conditions while less fire occurred during more humid conditions these results suggest that the fire activity in eastern china were primarily driven by climate changes i e variations of past moisture conditions and monsoon related changes in vegetation communities ultimately forced by the northern hemisphere insolation nhi on orbital timescales over the holocene our data also show that the fire activity increased concurrently with significant human development from the mid to late holocene possibly suggesting an intensified trend of human induced fire activities since about 7500 years ago moreover the fire activity in eastern china closely parallels the atmospheric co2 concentration inferred from antarctica ice cores our synthesis will help to better understand the relationship between fire climate and human activity at a variety of geographical scales

linkages between climate fire and vegetation in southwest china during the last 18 5ka based on a sedimentary record of black carbon and its isotopic composition abstract fires are sensitive to climate changes and in addition they have a major influence on the global carbon cycle land surface properties and chemical composition of the atmosphere which in turn can affect the climate system projecting the impacts of future climate changes on fire mediated biogeochemical processes requires understanding of how various climatic factors influence regional fire regimes however long term variations in fire activity and their controls are poorly known in this study we report the concentration of black carbon bc and its isotopic composition 13cbc in an upland lake sediment core from southwest china in order to elucidate linkages between changes in fire regime climate and vegetation over the past 18 5 ka the results show that the sedimentary bc content recorded variations in fire activity and exhibits a close negative correlation with the amount of precipitation delivered by the indian summer monsoon ism during heinrich event 1 18 5 15 0 cal ka bp the younger dryas 12 8 11 1 cal ka bp and the mid to late holocene the weakening of the ism led to greatly increased fire activity in southwest china in the last 1 0 ka the bc record may have been affected by human activity in the catchment which may have caused an increased influx of minerogenic material to the lake thereby diluting the sedimentary bc concentration the general trend of changing vegetation compositions inferred from the 13cbc values also tracks the variations of the ism suggesting a change from mixed c3 c4 plant ecosystems during the last glacial maximum to c3 plant dominated forest during the holocene however the abundance of c4 plants may be overestimated during the bolling allerod warm interval and the early holocene due to the fact that fires were probably limited to the savanna ecosystem in the valleys and low lying basins

holocene changes in seasonal precipitation highlighted by fire incidence in eastern canada postglacial fire history has been reconstructed for eastern canada from charcoal influx anomalies from 30 sites taken from a lacustrine charcoal database the reconstruction exhibits coherent patterns of fire occurrence in space and time the early holocene is characterised by high fire incidence there is a major change to much lower occurrence slightly after 8 ka bp a return to more fire appears after 3 ka bp this sequence does not fit with the hydro climatic reconstruction deduced from lake level reconstructions for northeastern north america which indicates a dry early and mid holocene and a wet late holocene fire occurrence however closely matches summer relative humidity inferred from 18o the differences between fire frequency and lake level history are due to changes in the seasonality of precipitation and drought frequency lake levels are essentially controlled by winter precipitation while summer precipitation controls fire occurrence the early holocene before 8 7 5 ka bp experienced dry summers due to higher solar radiation and dry adiabatic winds from the residual laurentide ice sheet the middle holocene was dominated by wet summers due to stability of the atlantic air mass over eastern canada after 2 5 ka bp summers became drier albeit not as fire conducive as during the early holocene late holocene summers conducive to fire are explained by more frequent incursions of dry cool pacific or cold arctic air masses over eastern canada

anatomy of a strike slip fault controlled sedimentary basin permian of the southern pyrenees spain this study is mainly concerned with a 55 km long east west oriented strike section through a thick succession of dominantly clastic post variscan deposits in the spanish pyrenees south of andorra a subdivision into three formations can be made two formations of stephanian age composed of volcanic rocks and fluviatile sediments respectively and one of probable permian age which has been studied in detail and is entirely composed of terrestrial redbeds these three formations are characterised by large variations in thickness along strike thicknesses vary from 0 to 800 m in the volcanics from 0 to 300 m in the stephanian fluviatile sediments and from 0 to 1500 m in the permian redbeds the geometry of the sedimentary bodies in all three formations suggests deposition in an east west oriented graben like depression a conclusion which is confirmed by detailed sedimentological analysis of the permian rocks the vertical succession of permian sediments can be subdivided in six major basinfill sequences which unconformably overlie each other internally the basinfill sequences are built up of one or more coarsening upward fining upward cycles the genesis of these cycles is directly related to dip slip movement along the basin boundary faults whereas the unconformities between the basinfill sequences indicate that periods of basin subsidence and sedimentation were followed by periods of deformation and erosion these changes in tectonic regime as reflected in the sedimentary sequences are interpreted to indicate alternating phases of transtension and transpression in a strike slip zone other sedimentological observations substantiate this interpretation the basin depocentre shifted in space and time which resulted in the observed large variations in sediment thickness along strike together with eastward paleocurrent directions along the basin axis transtension was accompanied by outpouring of andesitic lavas and drape folding on a large scale during transpressional phases normal faults changed character to reverse faults while folding uplift and subsequent erosion resulted in the formation of intrabasinal unconformities alternation of transpressive and transtensive conditions should be the result of movement along non planar fault surfaces in a major strike slip zone a separate structural study of the variscan basement of the studied basin revealed the existence of a dextral simple shear deformation generation of probable stephano permian age simple shear in the basement on the one hand and brittle superficial strike slip faulting involving transtension and transpression on the other are considered to be expressions of the same regional stress field at different levels in the earth s crust

climatic controls of holocene fire patterns in southern south america holocene fire climate vegetation linkages are mostly understood at individual sites by comparing charcoal and pollen records with other paleoenvironmental proxy and model simulations this scale of reconstruction often obscures detection of large scale patterns in past fire activity that are related to changes in regional climate and vegetation a network of 31 charcoal records from southern south america was examined to assess fire history along a transect from subtropic to subantarctic biomes the charcoal data indicate that fire activity was greater than present at ca 12 000 cal yr bp and increased further and was widespread at 9500 cal yr bp fire activity decreased and became more spatially variable by 6000 cal yr bp and this trend continued to present atmospheric circulation anomalies during recent high fire years show a southward shift in westerlies and paleoclimate model simulations and data syntheses suggest that such conditions may have prevailed for millennia in the early holocene when the pole to equator temperature gradients were weaker and annual temperatures were higher than present in response to orbital time scale insolation changes

asynchronous holocene climatic change across china a review of holocene climatic variations in different parts of china shows that they were asynchronous proxy data from ice cores pollen loess lacustrine sediments and changes of sea and lake levels demonstrate that many warm and cold oscillations have occurred in china during the holocene including a most important climatic event known as the holocene optimum a milder and wetter period and that the duration and amplitude of the optimum period as well as its start and end times differed in different parts of china uplift of the tibetan plateau over the past millions of years led to the development of the monsoon climate and to complex atmospheric circulation over continental china during the holocene as a result the holocene optimum began and terminated earlier in high altitude regions of western china than at lower elevations in eastern china and the amplitude of the variations was lower in the east this suggests that the western higher altitude areas were more sensitive to climatic change than were the eastern lower altitude areas holocene climatic records in the dunde and guliya ice cores do not correspond inverse 18o variations between the two cores indicate that the effects of climate and atmospheric processes on the stable isotopes at the two sites differed the correlation between the isotopic composition of carbonates in lake deposits in western china and climatic variations is similar to that in the ice cores the climatic resolution in ice cores and lake sediments is higher than that in other media the lack of precise correspondence of climatic records constructed on the basis of proxy data from different parts of china is a result of the different locations and elevations of the sampling sites the different resolutions of the source material and the varied climatic conditions within china further work is needed to confirm both the conclusions and the inferences presented here

variation of east asian monsoon precipitation during the past 21 k y and potential co2 forcing paleoclimatic research can provide critical insight on causes of change in the east asian monsoon which influences the lives of 1 6 billion people today in this study we use paleoclimatic indexes from chinese loess deposits which have clear climatic implications and are independently dated to reconstruct the monsoon precipitation since 21 ka our results show that monsoon precipitation persistently decreased from 21 ka to ca 8 ka and increased after ca 8 ka with a precipitation peak at 8 3 ka these changes in east asian summer monsoon precipitation are synchronous with changes in high northern latitude ice volume ice cover and atmospheric co2 these new data suggest that variation of the monsoon precipitation was probably driven by co2 forced high northern latitude temperature changes shifting the location of the intertropical convergence zone that dominates monsoon precipitation our trace 21000 modeling experiment supports this interpretation

millennial scale variability in biomass burning covering the interval 41 000 7050 cal bp in the tropical leizhou peninsula south china abstract here we present a well dated terrestrial charcoal chronology covering the interval 41 000 7050 cal bp and identifying the millennial scale variability in biomass burning for the tropical leizhou peninsula south china our results show that changes in biomass burning closely followed regional temperature and precipitation variations on orbital timescales i e more biomass burning occurred during the warm wet marine isotope stage mis 3 and less biomass burning occurred during the cold dry mis 2 superimposed on this general trend our charcoal record shows millennial scale variability in biomass burning corresponding to the rapid climate changes associated with dansgaard oeschger d o cycles i e biomass burning increased during d o warming events whereas biomass burning decreased during intervals of rapid cooling terminated by heinrich events during the cooler drier periods low biomass burning can be explained by the decline of vegetation productivity whereas the warmer wetter periods are characterized by higher biomass burning related to increasing fuel availability therefore climate control can be considered as the major forcing factor of biomass burning from 41 000 7050 cal bp on both orbital and millennial timescales in the northern leizhou peninsula

reconstructing late holocene vegetation and fire histories in monsoonal region of southeastern china abstract eastern subtropical china is a key region for understanding the variability of the east asian summer monsoon easm multidisciplinary studies in southeastern china have shown that the summer monsoon intensity declined in the mid late holocene we present a high resolution pollen record of the last 4000 cal yr bp in jinggang mts of jiangxi province southeastern china the identified pollen taxa from the core can be statistically divided into three groups corresponding to evergreen deciduous and wetland communities the transitions between evergreen and deciduous coniferous pollen associations is likely caused by temperature fluctuations indicating that climate was relatively cool at 3800 3200 cal yr bp and 2200 1300 cal yr bp and warmer at 3200 2800 cal yr bp and 1300 800 cal yr bp the vegetation study suggests that an alnus dominant association represents a secondary forest that usually takes place and expand after repeated forest fires the charcoal concentration from the core depicts at least six major forest fire events since 4000 cal yr bp most of which were followed by the development of an alnus forest community this result suggests that the easm weakened toward the late holocene and that its related decrease in moisture led to large forest wildfires furthermore the rapid formation of a swamp and the subsequent development of the alnus wetland community at 550 cal yr bp suggest a gradual drying up of the lake which was likely related to the little ice age as a result of a substantial burning related to an intensification of the human cultivation practices alnus reached its highest values in the last 200 years along with abundant wetland herbs pioneer ferns mainly dicranopteris and high charcoal concentrations the present evidence of several sharp floristic and climate changes coincides with either the collapse or the beginning of some chinese dynasties which will need further research on the relationship between natural and human cultural changes

holocene monsoon climate documented by oxygen and carbon isotopes from lake sediments and peat bogs in china a review and synthesis there has been much recent debate about holocene climate variation in the monsoon region of china especially the temporal pattern of variations in precipitation the time transgressive nature of the holocene precipitation maximum and the extent to which variations in regions influenced by the indian summer monsoon ism and the east asian summer monsoon easm have been synchronous we summarize and compare carbonate oxygen isotope records delta o 18 carb from ten lakes within the present day ism region we discuss their paleoclimate significance considering the present day moisture source isotopic composition of precipitation and the hydrological setting the delta o 18 carb records are controlled mainly by the isotopic composition of lake water which in turn is a function of regional precipitation evaporation p e balance and the proportion of precipitation that is monsoon derived we normalized the delta o 18 carb data and used these records to generate an integrated moisture index this index along with oxygen isotope records from speleothems and carbon isotope records delta c 13 org from peats within the monsoon region suggests that holocene climate was broadly synchronous across the monsoon region and within the limits of accuracy of the existing age models provides no strong evidence for previously proposed anti phasing of the ism and the easm stable isotope records from lake sediments and peat bogs have excellent potential for providing high quality paleoclimate data for monsoon asia and complement high resolution speleothem sequences which are only found in certain localities c 2011 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

holocene wildfires related to climate and land use change over the weihe river basin china abstract charcoal particles preserved in the loess palaeosol profiles provide records of wildfires during the holocene total organic carbon magnetic susceptibility and charcoal analysis and osl dating were carried out in the holocene loess palaeosol profiles at two sites in the weihe river basin the analytical results show that natural wildfires occurred frequently during the last glaciation when climate was dominated by northwest continental monsoon and steppe vegetation expanded southerly to the weihe river basin wildfire occurrence decreased during climatic amelioration in the early holocene during the holocene climatic optimum between 8500 b p and 3100 b p natural wildfire occurrence was reduced greatly pedogenic alteration to the accumulated dust was intensified because of the humid warm climate brought on by southeast maritime monsoon localized fire events in connection with human activities of the neolithic occurred in several episodes over the region during the late holocene when climate become drier wildfire occurrence over the upland hills shows a pattern different from that in the guanzhong basin over the upland hills in the north charcoal concentrations show a decreasing trend in the recent loess and topsoil it indicates infrequent biomass burning during the last 3100 years this is attributable to nomadic occupation of the loess hills during the bronze age and the development of a land use pattern of livestock farming in most part of the history over the loess tableland in the guanzhong basin in the south abruptly increased charcoal concentrations in the recent loess and topsoil show very high level of biomass burning this is attributable to the increasingly intensified land reclamation for cereal cultivation from the bronze age this study provides new insights into wildfires over the semi arid and sub humid regions in connection with climate and land use change

asynchronous evolution of the indian and east asian summer monsoon indicated by holocene moisture patterns in monsoonal central asia abstract the numerical meta analysis of 92 proxy records 72 sites of moisture and or temperature change confirms earlier findings that the dominant trends of climatic evolution in monsoonal central asia since the last glacial roughly parallel changes in northern hemisphere summer insolation i e the period following the last glacial maximum was characterized by dry and cold conditions until 15 cal kyr bp followed by a warm wet period coincident with the bolling allerod warm period and terminated by a cold dry reversal during the younger dryas period after an abrupt increase at the start of the holocene warm and wet conditions prevailed until ca 4 cal kyr bp when moisture levels and temperatures started to decrease ordination of moisture records reveals strong spatial heterogeneity in moisture evolution during the last 10 cal kyr the indian summer monsoon ism areas northern india tibetan plateau and southwest china exhibit maximum wet conditions during the early holocene while many records from the area of the east asian summer monsoon indicate relatively dry conditions especially in north central china where the maximum moisture levels occurred during the mid holocene we assign such phenomena to strengthened hadley circulation centered over the tibetan plateau during the early holocene which resulted in subsidence in the east asian monsoonal regions leading to relatively dry conditions our observations of the asynchronous nature of the two asian monsoon subsystems on millennial time scales have also been observed on annual time scales as well as implied through the spatial analysis of vertical air motion patterns after strong ascending airflows over the tibetan plateau area that were calculated from ncep ncar reanalysis data for the last 30 years analogous with the early holocene the enhancement of the ism in a future warming world will result in an increase in the asynchronous nature of the monsoon subsystems this trend is already observed in the meteorological data from the last 15 years

holocene east asian summer monsoon records in northern china and their inconsistency with chinese stalagmite δ18o records abstract monsoon precipitation over china exhibits large spatial differences it has been found that a significantly enhanced east asian summer monsoon easm is characterized by increased rainfall in northern china and by reduced rainfall in southern china and this relationship occurs on different time scales during the holocene this study presents results from a diverse range of proxy paleoclimatic records from northern china where precipitation variability is traditionally considered as an easm proxy our aim is to evaluate the evolution of the easm during the holocene and to compare it with all of the published stalagmite 18 o records from the asian monsoon region in order to explore the potential mechanism s controlling the chinese stalagmite 18 o we found that the intensity of the easm during the holocene recorded by the traditional easm proxy of moisture or precipitation records from northern china is significantly different from the chinese stalagmite 18 o records the easm maximum occurred during the mid holocene challenging the prevailing view of an early holocene easm maximum mainly inferred from stalagmite 18 o records in eastern china in addition all of the well dated holocene stalagmite 18 o records covering a broad geographical region exhibit a remarkably similar trend of variation and are statistically well correlated on different time scales thus indicating a common signal however in contrast with the clear consistency in the 18 o values in all of the cave records both instrumental and paleoclimatic records exhibit significant spatial variations in rainfall on decadal to centennial time scales over eastern china in addition both paleoclimatic records and modeling results suggest that holocene east asian summer monsoon precipitation reached a maximum at different periods in different regions of china thus the stalagmite 18 o records from the easm region should not be regarded as a reliable indicator of the strength of the east asian summer monsoon furthermore modern observations indicate that the moisture for precipitation in the east asian monsoon region is mainly derived from the indian ocean the moisture transport route from the indian ocean to the east asian monsoon region during the holocene is almost identical to that of modern precipitation therefore the strong correlation of 18 o records in the easm and indian summer monsoon ism regions and the similarity of the pattern of latitudinal changes in 18 o values in stalagmites and in modern meteoric precipitation along the water vapor transport route further suggests that the stalagmite 18 o records from the easm region are essentially a signal of the isotopic composition of precipitation which is determined mainly by changes in the 18 o of atmospheric vapor in the upstream source region over the indian ocean and indian monsoon region via the upstream depletion mechanism finally the main trends of the stalagmite 18 o records are strongly correlated with the known evolution of the ism and therefore these records reflect the history of the ism rather than that of the easm our findings support the conclusion that easm variability is mainly controlled by northern hemisphere summer insolation and was strongly modulated by ice volume during the last deglaciation and early holocene which delayed the response of the easm maximum to peak insolation forcing

black carbon in soils and sediments analysis distribution implications and current challenges this review highlights the ubiquity of black carbon bc produced by incomplete combustion of plant material and fossil fuels in peats soils and lacustrine and marine sediments we examine various definitions and analytical approaches and seek to provide a common language bc represents a continuum from partly charred material to graphite and soot particles with no general agreement on clear cut boundaries formation of bc can occur in two fundamentally different ways volatiles recondense to highly graphitized soot bc whereas the solid residues form char bc both forms of bc are relatively inert and are distributed globally by water and wind via fluvial and atmospheric transport we summarize chronologically the ubiquity of bc in soils and sediments since devonian times differentiating between bc from vegetation fires and from fossil fuel combustion bc has important implications for various biological geochemical and environmental processes as examples bc may represent a significant sink in the global carbon cycle affect the earth s radiative heat balance be a useful tracer for earth s fire history build up a significant fraction of carbon buried in soils and sediments and carry organic pollutants on land bc seems to be abundant in dark colored soils affected by frequent vegetation burning and fossil fuel combustion thus probably contributing to the highly stable aromatic components of soil organic matter we discuss challenges for future research despite the great importance of bc only limited progress has been made in calibrating analytical techniques progress in the quantification of bc is likely to come from systematic intercomparison using bcs from different sources and in different natural matrices bc identification could benefit from isotopic and spectroscopic techniques applied at the bulk and molecular levels the key to estimating bc stocks in soils and sediments is an understanding of the processes involved in bc degradation on a molecular level a promising approach would be the combination of short term laboratory experiments and long term field trials

a high resolution absolute dated holocene and deglacial asian monsoon record from dongge cave china abstract we present a continuous record of the asian monsoon over the last 16 ka from 18o measurements of stalagmite calcite over 900 oxygen isotopic measurements providing information on shifts in monsoon precipitation are combined with a chronology from 45 precise 230th dates 18o and therefore asian monsoon intensity generally follows changes in insolation although changes in 18o are generally accommodated in abrupt shifts in contrast to smoothly varying insolation indicating that threshold effects may be important 18o decreased dramatically 3 at the start of the holocene 11 5 ka and remained low for 6 ka four positive 18o events centered at 11225 97 yr bp 1 05 10880 117 yr bp 1 15 9165 75 yr bp 1 4 and a double event centered at 8260 64 yr bp 1 1 and 8080 74 yr bp 1 0 punctuated this period of high monsoon intensity all four events correlate within error with climate changes in greenland ice cores thus the relationship between the asian monsoon and the north atlantic observed during the glacial period appears to continue into the early holocene in addition three of the four events correlate within error with outburst events from lake agassiz the decline of monsoon intensity in the mid late holocene is characterized by an abrupt positive shift in 18o which occurs at 3550 59 yr bp 1 1 in 100 yr in addition the holocene is punctuated by numerous centennial and multi decadal scale events amplitudes 0 5 to 1 up to half the amplitude of the glacial interstadial events seen in the last glacial period thus holocene centennial and multi decadal scale monsoon variability is significant although not as large as glacial millennial scale variability the monsoon shows a strong connection with northern south american hydrological changes related by changes in itcz position spectral analysis of the 18o record shows significant peaks at solar periodicities of 208 yr and 86 yr suggesting variation is influenced by solar forcing however there are numerous other significant peaks including peaks at el nino frequencies observed for high resolution portions of the record between 8110 and 8250 yr which suggest that changes in oceanic and atmospheric circulation patterns in addition to those forced by solar changes are important in controlling holocene monsoon climate in addition for this high resolution portion we observe a distinctive biennial oscillation of the asian monsoon which has been associated with the tropospheric biennial oscillation tbo

wildfire history and climatic change in the semi arid loess tableland in the middle reaches of the yellow river of china during the holocene evidence from charcoal records high resolution macroscopic charcoal and sediment analysis was used to reconstruct fire history and environmental changes from three loess paleosol profiles on the semi arid loess tableland landsca

the present state of the magmatic system of the campi flegrei caldera based on a reconstruction of its behavior in the past 12 ka abstract new geochemical and sr isotope data have been acquired on samples representative of volcanic units erupted inside the resurgent campi flegrei caldera cfc over the past 12 ka these data integrated with previous published petrological and with newly acquired geochronological volcanological and geothermal data shed light on the nature and timing of the processes that controlled the evolution of the phlegraean magmatic system in the past 12 ka three isotopically and geochemically distinct magmatic components were erupted at the cfc as either homogeneous or mixed magma batches one component campanian ignimbrite component cic 87 sr 86 sr 0 70735 0 70740 is similar to the trachytic magma extruded during the first phase of the campanian ignimbrite ci eruption 37 ka a second component neapolitan yellow tuff component nytc 87 sr 86 sr 0 70750 0 70757 is similar to the latitic alkali trachytic magma batches extruded during the course of the neapolitan yellow tuff nyt eruption 12 ka a third component minopoli component mic 87 sr 86 sr 0 7086 is similar to the trachybasaltic magma of the minopoli 2 mi eruption 9 7 ka these components were erupted as either single batches of magma or mixed ci nyt or mi nyt batches of magma through vents located either along the structural boundary of the nyt caldera or inside the nyt caldera mainly on portions of the resurgent block under extensional stress the ci and nyt components represent residual portions of older large volume magma reservoirs which have fed eruptions since about 60 and 15 ka respectively the least evolved mi component was erupted only during the 12 9 5 ka and 8 6 8 2 ka epochs of activity through vents located on a ne sw regional fault system this component could represent a deeper reservoir tapped by the ne sw regional fault system reactivated after the nyt caldera collapse deeper mi and shallower ci and nyt magmatic systems interacted by mixing among batches of magma during their rise to surface overall the data suggest that the cfc magmatic system today is characterized by the presence of two larger independent reservoirs filled by residual portions of the ci and nyt magmas these generated many smaller shallower pockets of evolved magma that fed most of the eruptions that occurred in the cfc over the past 12 ka moreover a deeper reservoir mi tapped by the ne sw regional fault system provided batches of less evolved magma that mixed with magma present in the shallower pockets

determination of black carbon by chemical oxidation and thermal treatment in recent marine and lake sediments and cretaceous tertiary clays abstract several sample treatments and analytical methods for the measurement of black carbon in a wide variety of sediments were considered in which the removal of organic carbon is a critical step in the procedure a comparison between chemical oxidation and thermal treatment was conducted and the latter was shown to be inappropriate due to the polymerisation of organic matter using acid dichromate oxidation reactive kerogen was separated from black carbon in a variety of lake and marine and recent and ancient sediments with relatively small and quantifiable losses 1 6 of black carbon under carefully controlled reaction conditions

a 750 year fire history based on lake sediment records in central yellowstone national park usa a 750 year fire history was reconstructed for the central plateau of yellowstone national park from the deep water sediments of five lakes the charcoal record from a large lake provided a chronology of regional fires data from four small lakes were used to study local and extralocal fires the co occurrence of abundant charcoal and high magnetic susceptibility values at the same stratigraphic level was used as evidence of a local catchment fire and a charcoal peak without high magnetic susceptibility was ascribed to an extralocal fire or a local fire without a related erosion event the fire history was compared with the dendrochronologic fire record for the last 450 years and the close agreement provided the justification to extend the chronology back in time large areas of the region burned in ad 1988 c 1700 c 1560 and c 1440 from c 1220 to 1440 and c 1700 to 1987 intermediate to small areas burned the near absence of fires in the twentieth century prior to the large fires of 1988 is evi

holocene changes in fire frequency in the daihai lake region north central china indications and implications for an important role of human activity abstract black carbon bc content in a sediment core from daihai lake inner mongolia was analyzed to reconstruct a high resolution history of fires occurring in northern china during the holocene and to examine the impacts of natural changes and human activities on the fire regime the black carbon mass sedimentation rate bcmsr was disintegrated into two components the background bcmsr and the bcmsr peak with the bcmsr peak representing the frequency of fire episodes both the background bcmsr and the magnitude of the bcmsr peak display a close relation with the percentage of tree pollen from the same sediment core suggesting that regional vegetation type would be a factor controlling the intensity of fires the inferred fire episode frequency for the holocene exhibits two phases of obvious increases i e the first increase from