Abstract:
Asian dust within the Parece Vela Basin (PVB) mainly originates from the arid regions of Asia, and dust particle size and dust flux (MAR mass accumulation rate) play a very important role in indicating the strength of the East Asian winter monsoon and the degree of aridification of the source region. In this study, we quantitatively separated the detrital fractions of samples within the PVB by the Weibull function fitting method, analyzed the sources of different fractions in combination with the Sr and Nd isotopic signatures of the sediments, and reconstructed the dust MAR within the PVB during the past 1 Ma. Findings indicate that the fine-grained fraction of core CP-19 varies in grain size from 0.1 to 12.6 μm, averaging around 1.9 μm in modal grain size and about 50.0% in content. It is inferred that this fraction is Asian dust, mainly originating from the deserts of eastern Asia and the Chinese loess plateau region, with a dust MAR ranging from 22.6 to 91.5 mg·cm
−2·ka
−1 (average 62.8 mg·cm
−2·ka
−1). The coarse-grained fraction of core CP-19 varies in grain size from 1.3 to 58.5 μm, averaging around 13.2 μm in modal grain size and about 44.2% in content. This fraction is inferred to be proximal volcanic material, mainly sourced from the nearby west Mariana ridge, with a volcanic material MAR ranging from 27.3 to 167.9 mg·cm
−2·kyr
−1 (average 60.5 mg·cm
−2·ka
−1) The increase in dust MAR within the PVB during the near 1 Ma period reflects the overall persistent arid climatic characteristics of the East Asian dust source region. During the period from 1 to 0.6 Ma, the dust MAR trends within the PVB and between the Pacific Ocean show that the differences are influenced by the enhanced East Asian winter monsoon. From 0.6 Ma to the present, the climate change cycle is clearly defined, and the dust MAR trends in the PVB and the Pacific Ocean are synchronized, which together reflect the climatic features of enhanced winter monsoon and intensified aridification in East Asia during the ice age phase as well as the weakening of the winter monsoon intensity and aridification in the last ice age.