Boulder, Colorado, USA - Drought events are largely unknown in Earth's history, because reconstruction of ancient hydrological conditions remains difficult due to lack of proxy. New GEOLOGY research supported by China's NNSF and MS&T uses a microbial lipid proxy of highly alkaline conditions to identify enhanced aridity in Miocene sediments on the Tibetan Plateau. This enhanced aridity is associated with significant uplift of the Tibetan Plateau nine million years ago.
According to the study's lead author, Xie Shucheng of the China University of Geosciences at Wuhan, the identification of ancient droughts and associated alkaline soils is particularly challenging at the regional or local level, and is beyond the predictive capabilities of available general circulation models (GCMs). GCMs, which are used to understand physical processes in the Earth surface system, are advanced tools for simulation of long-term temperature change.
This new research proposes a microbial lipid proxy of highly alkaline conditions and enhanced aridity on the basis of investigation of modern Chinese soils. In modern Chinese soils, more abundant archaeal lipids known as iGDGTs (isoprenoid glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers) relative to bacterial branched GDGTs were found to be associated with alkaline conditions and enhanced aridity. As a consequence, the ratio of archaeal GDGTs to bacterial GDGTs is indicative of the occurrence of ancient alkalinity and enhanced aridity.
Xie and colleagues also used the microbial lipid proxy to identify the enhanced aridity and alkalinity of Late Miocene sediments from the Zhada basin, which is located in the southwestern Tibetan Plateau, ~1000 km west of Lhasa. They find that the highly alkaline conditions and enhanced aridity identified in these sediments are associated with the most significant uplift of the Tibetan Plateau nine million years ago. The study's findings suggest that abrupt uplifts in the Tibetan Plateau can cause enhanced aridity in central Asia and a consequential development of alkaline soils.
Xie and colleagues acknowledge Hongfu Yin of the China University of Geosciences at Wuhan for advocacy of the development of molecular geobiology, which makes this type of research possible.
GEOLOGY articles published ahead of print can be accessed at http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/early/recent. When articles are assigned to a print issue they will be removed from the pre-issue publication folder, but doi numbers will remain constant.
Abstracts for issues of GEOLOGY are available at http://geology.gsapubs.org/. Sign up for pre-issue publication e-alerts at http://www.gsapubs.org/cgi/alerts for first access to new journal content as it is posted. Subscribe to RSS feeds at http://geology.gsapubs.org/rss/.
Representatives of the media may obtain complimentary articles by contacting Christa Stratton. Please discuss articles of interest with the authors before publishing stories on their work, and please make reference to GEOLOGY in your articles or blog posts. Contact Christa Stratton for additional information or assistance. Requests must be in English.
Non-media requests for articles may be directed to GSA Sales and Service, gsaservice@geosociety.org.
Microbial lipid records of highly alkaline deposits and enhanced aridity associated with significant uplift of the Tibetan Plateau in the Late Miocene
Shucheng Xie et al., State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China. Posted online 28 Feb. 2012; doi: 10.1130/G32570.1; http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/early/2012/02/23/G32570.1.abstract.
The Geological Society of America, founded in 1888, is a scientific society with more than 25,000 members from academia, government, and industry in more than 100 countries around the world. Through its meetings, publications, and programs, GSA enhances the professional growth of its members and promotes the geosciences in the service of humankind. Headquartered in Boulder, Colorado, GSA encourages cooperative research among earth, life, planetary, and social scientists, fosters public dialogue on geoscience issues, and supports all levels of earth science education.
Journal
Geology