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Mid to late Holocene climate evolution of the Lake Telmen Basin, North Central Mongolia, based on palynological data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Sarah J. Fowell ,
Barbara C.S. Hansen ,
John A. Peck ,
P. Khosbayar  and
Enebish Ganbold
Sarah J. Fowell*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Box 755780, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA
Barbara C.S. Hansen
Affiliation:
Limnologic Research Center, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455-0219, USA
John A. Peck
Affiliation:
Office for Terrestrial Records of Environmental Change, Department of Geology, University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325, USA
P. Khosbayar
Affiliation:
Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources, Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia
Enebish Ganbold
Affiliation:
Institute of Botany, Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia
*
*Corresponding author. Fax: +1-907-474-5163.Email Address:ffsjf@uaf.edu
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Abstract

Palynological and sedimentological data from Lake Telmen, in north-central Mongolia, permit qualitative reconstruction of relative changes in moisture balance throughout the mid to late Holocene. The climate of the Atlantic period (7500–4500 yr ago) was relatively arid, indicating that Lake Telmen lay beyond the region of enhanced precipitation delivered by the expanded Asian monsoon. Maximum humidity is recorded between ∼4500 and 1600 cal yr B.P., during the Subboreal (4500–2500 yr ago) and early Subatlantic (2500 yr–present) periods. Additional humid intervals during the Medieval Warm Epoch (∼1000–1300 A.D. or 950–650 ago) and the Little Ice Age (1500– 1900 A.D. or 450–50 yr B.P.) demonstrate the lack of long-term correlation between temperature and moisture availability in this region. A brief aridification centered around 1410 cal yr B.P. encompasses a decade of cold temperatures and summer frost between A.D. 536 and 545 (1414–1405 yr B.P.) inferred from records of Mongolian tree-ring widths. These data suggest that steppe vegetation of the Lake Telmen region is sensitive to centennial- and decadal-scale climatic perturbations.

Keywords

PalynologyPaleoclimateMongoliaHoloceneSteppeAridLacustrine
Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , May 2003 , pp. 353 - 363
Copyright
Elsevier Science (USA)

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