Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 112, Issue 25, Pages 7662-7667Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1424487112
Keywords
Taklimakan Desert; late Oligocene; early Miocene; tectonic uplift; desertification
Categories
Funding
- Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences [XDB03020300]
- National Science Foundation of China [NSFC 40025207, 90211019, 41021002]
- Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions
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As the world's second largest sand sea and one of the most important dust sources to the global aerosol system, the formation of the Taklimakan Desert marks a major environmental event in central Asia during the Cenozoic. Determining when and how the desert formed holds the key to better understanding the tectonic-climatic linkage in this critical region. However, the age of the Taklimakan remains controversial, with the dominant view being from similar to 3.4 Ma to similar to 7 Ma based on magnetostratigraphy of sedimentary sequences within and along the margins of the desert. In this study, we applied radioisotopic methods to precisely date a volcanic tuff preserved in the stratigraphy. We constrained the initial desertification to be late Oligocene to early Miocene, between similar to 26.7 Ma and 22.6 Ma. We suggest that the Taklimakan Desert was formed as a response to a combination of widespread regional aridification and increased erosion in the surrounding mountain fronts, both of which are closely linked to the tectonic uplift of the Tibetan-Pamir Plateau and Tian Shan, which had reached a climatically sensitive threshold at this time.
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