Recently, Prof. Nie Jusheng’s research group of LZU College of Earth Environmental Sciences published a paper entitled "Pre-Quaternary Decoupling between Asian aridification and high dust accumulation rates" in Science Advances, on the evolution of dust in the Loess Plateau. The paper reveals that in the geological history period, dust accumulation in the Loess Plateau indicated a humid climate of Central Asian, rather than a drying one.
The abstract of the thesis is as follows:
Theories of late Cenozoic climate cooling assume that central Asian aridification and high dust accumulation rates in the Chinese Loess Plateau and the North Pacific Ocean are genetically related. On the basis of detailed sediment provenance analysis, we show that high dust accumulation rates in the Chinese Loess Plateau and the North Pacific Ocean during the late Miocene-Pliocene were mainly caused by increased erosion in the Qilian Mountains and low-elevation eastern Asia areas, driven by the effects of East Asian summer monsoon intensification. We conclude that precipitation-driven erosion increased dust input to the North Pacific Ocean and may have played a pivotal role in late Cenozoic climate cooling.
In the past three years, Prof. Nie has published three papers in sub-journals of the Nature and Science under the support of Foundation for Outstanding Youth, with himself as the first author and correspondence author. Meanwhile, he was invited to be the Associate Editor of Frontiers in Earth Science, and the editorial board member in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology , Palaeoecology, Scientific Reports and Heliyon, further enhancing the visibility of LZU at home and abroad in Quaternary geology.
(Translated by Ren Yanyang; proofread by Yang Fan)
