Abstract
Southeastern Tibet is one of the most glaciated regions on the Tibetan Plateau both at present and during the Quaternary. Numerical dating of glacial deposits has allowed the establishment of a provisional chronology of Quaternary glacial fluctuations in this region, with the oldest glaciation (Guxiang Glaciation) occurring in marine oxygen isotope stage 6 (MIS-6). During our recent field investigations, a morphostratigraphically older lateral moraine than that of the Guxiang Glaciation has been first identified, which is ∼500–600 m above the Guxiang Glaciation moraine and discontinuously preserved on valley shoulders in the Bodui Zangbo River valley, eastern Nyainqêntanglha Range in southeastern Tibet. Considering the moraine is best preserved at Nitong Village, here we name the glacier advance which deposited the moraine as “Nitong Glaciation”. Using electron spin resonance (ESR) technique, we dated the Nitong Glaciation moraine to 506.3±60.4 ka. Taking into account the age error and climatic conditions, we consider it most likely that the Nitong Glaciation occurred during MIS-12, although it might had happened sometime earlier.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41771065, 42071088, 41271077 and 41371080). We thank Professors Jianping Li and Chunru Liu from the State Key Laboratory of Earthquake Dynamics, Institute of Geology, China Earthquake Administration, for their assistance in the ESR experiments. We are also grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that helped to significantly improve the quality of the manuscript.
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Zhou, S., Xie, J., Ou, X. et al. Evidence for glaciation predating MIS-6 in the eastern Nyainqêntanglha Range, southeastern Tibet. Sci. China Earth Sci. 64, 559–570 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-020-9711-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-020-9711-2