Huayu Lu

Nanjing University | NJU · School of Geography and Ocean Science

Regular flows and infrequent outburst floods shape many mountain landscapes, but the relative contributions from these gradual processes and infrequent high-magnitude events have been widely debated, in part due to a paucity of reliable data from historical outburst floods. Here we quantify erosion and deposition from a catastrophic outburst flood...

The formation and evolution of the landscape of the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) is debated because of uncertainties regarding dust provenance. We present a quantitative estimation of dust source contributions to the CLP, based on more than 37,100 detrital zircon U-Pb ages, combined with mineral assemblages and isotope analyses. Our results reveal t...

The origin of the temperature divergence between Holocene proxy reconstructions and model simulations remains controversial, but it possibly results from potential biases in the seasonality of reconstructions or in the climate sensitivity of models. Here we present an extensive dataset of Holocene seasonal temperatures reconstructed using 1310 poll...

Plain Language Summary The provenance of silt‐sized particles in the Taklimakan Desert is critical for understanding aridification and climate dynamics in central Asia, as well as the production mechanism of dust—a key player in the global biogeochemical cycles of nutrient elements. Here, we measured the uranium‐strontium‐neodymium isotopes in silt...

Numerous open air Palaeolithic and hominin fossil sites have been discovered in the Qinling Mountain Range (QMR) in central China. However, a small number have been confirmed as dating to the Early Pleistocene. The present study introduces stratigraphic and chronological studies of the newly discovered Guanmenyan Palaeolithic site, Danjiangkou Basi...

Reconstructing the vegetation history of southwest China since the Last Glacial Maximum is crucial for understanding the evolution of the Indian summer monsoon. In this study, we present a high-resolution palynological investigation from a 5 m core from the Ganchi peatland (southwest margin of the Sichuan Basin, southwest China) in order to reconst...

River piracy has been reported worldwide and was regarded as one of the main drivers for landscape evolution. In this study, we introduce an example of river piracy in the northern Qilian Shan (northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau), and further interpret its regional geomorphological implications. Chi-map analysis, erosion potentiality evaluation, an...

Xinjiang, northwestern China, has the largest area of sandy desert landscapes in the northern hemisphere mid-latitudes and is known to be subject to so-called sandy desertification. Longer-term records of changes in the distribution of sandy desert landscapes are required to develop a more comprehensive understanding of mechanisms underlying their...

Variations of precipitation in tropical-subtropical regions are fundamentally important to human sustainable development. However, the dominant cyclicity and the mechanism of orbital-scale precipitation variations remain under extensive debate. Here, we used a newly drilled core from the Tianyang (TY) maar lake (South China) to reconstruct Asian mo...

The rise of grasses using C4 photosynthesis and dominating grasslands during the latest Cenozoic is one of the most dramatic events in Earth's history. A growing body of geological records adds more details to this process, such as the study of fossil phytoliths. Phytolith data make it possible to track major grass lineages over time, and distingui...

East Asian Monsoon variations during the Plio-Pleistocene transition have attracted much scientific interest, but they are still not well understood. We analysed the trace and major element concentrations of the Red Clay and loess-paleosol sequence of the XSC section, on the southern Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP), over the time interval of 4–2 Ma. Fr...

There is great controversy regarding variations in the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) during the Holocene. Simulations and modern observations have revealed that a strengthened EASM results in more precipitation in the monsoon marginal zone. Therefore, quantitative reconstruction of precipitation in this region is the key to revealing monsoon var...

Pliocene warmth has been used as an analogue for predicting climate response to the rapid atmospheric CO2 increase in the future. Pedogenic carbonates provide an essential archive to reconstruct terrestrial paleoenvironment in a warm world. The stable carbon isotopic compositions of pedogenic carbonate (\({\updelta }^{13}{\mathrm{C}}_{\mathrm{carb}...

In the East Asian monsoon region, Chinese speleothem δ18O records exhibit a maximum monsoon strength during the early Holocene. However, other proxy data from lakes or loess, interpreted as monsoon rainfall, show a mid‐Holocene monsoon optimum. This discrepancy may come from specific climate interpretation of different proxies. Here we report multi...

Plain Language Summary Rivers in foreland basins commonly exhibit a sharp gravel to sand transition of bed sediment (GST), which is preserved in the stratigraphy as the conglomerate‐sandstone transition (CST). Previous studies attribute the migration of the CST in foreland basins to tectonics of the coupled mountain ranges. Migration of the CSTs is...

Dithionite-citrate-bicarbonate (DCB) treatment is a classical method for removing iron oxides from soil. The DCB-induced dissolution effects on iron oxides are controversial. In this paper, samples from a typical loess-paleosol sequence in the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) and from other aeolian dust deposits in southern China were collected, and cha...

In this study, channel steepness and main divide migration analysis were conducted on the Qinghai Nanshan to confirm the activity and evolution of the range. The results showed that the broad and gently dipping northern limbs correspond to relatively low steepness values, while the narrow and steeply dipping southern limbs are characterized by high...

The Qinling Mountain Range (QMR) spans a large region in China and is an important area of hominin activities. Many Paleolithic sites are found in Bahe, South Luohe, and Hanjiang river valleys in the northern, eastern, and southern part of the range, respectively. The Danjiang River valley acts as a channel connecting these valleys and stretches fr...

Loess sequences are widely distributed in semi-arid regions around the world, and are sometimes also located in coastal zones. The accumulations of coastal loess provide a valuable record of both climate and sea-level changes. Here we report sedimentological and high sampling resolution luminescence dating evidence for such changes from two loess s...

Loess deposits along the northern fringe of the European loess belt potentially record past changes in dust emission from areas proximal to former ice sheets. Recent chronologies from loess deposits across this region generally agree on greatly enhanced dust deposition rates when the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet reached its maximum extent during the lat...

Dust cycle is actively involved in the Earth’s climate and environmental systems. However, the spatiotemporal pattern and recent trend of dust emission from the drylands in East Asia remain unclear. By calculating dust aerosol optical depth (DOD) from the newly released MODIS aerosol products, we obtain a relatively long satellite-based time series...

Paleosols preserved in the Red Clay depositional sequence of the Chinese Loess Plateau record information about vegetation and regional hydrology responses to global temperature variation throughout the late Miocene and Pliocene. Reconstructing spatial and temporal patterns of environmental change across the Loess Plateau from carbon isotopes of pe...

SharedIt link: https://rdcu.be/czKfb. River capture is of great significance to landform evolution and hominine migration. In the Qinling-Daba Mountains, there is a viewpoint that Jialing River captured Hanjiang River, but this is still controversial. In this paper, we discuss the drainage evolution processes in intermountain basins at the Qinling...

Northeast China lies in the transition zone from the humid monsoonal to the arid continental climate, with diverse ecosystems and agricultural land highly susceptible to climate change. This region has experienced significant greening in the past three decades, but future trends remain uncertain. In this study, we provide a quantitative assessment...

Nebkhas, also known as nebkha dunes or coppice dunes, are a unique biogeomorphological aeolian landform that is common in arid and semi-arid regions. They are often regarded as a signal of regional desertification and could be potential dust sources due to their relatively large content of fine sediments, but they also serve as “fertile islands” th...

The Yellow River catchment in central China is one of the cradles of Chinese civilization. Since the mid-Holocene, the runoff and erosion in this area, which includes the Chinese Loess Plateau, have been affected by anthropogenic land cover changes (ALCC) and Asian monsoon climatic changes. We applied the reconstructions of Holocene climate (temper...

Upstream knickpoint propagation is an essential mechanism for channel erosion, carrying changes in base level, tectonic, and climate across the landscape. Generally, the terraces on cross-sections at steady-state conditions have been widely reported. However, many landscapes in the field appear to be in a transient state. Here, we explore the mecha...

Obtaining a continuous sedimentary record of Cenozoic East Asian paleoclimate change is key to understand the origin, evolution and driving mechanism of the East Asian monsoon and climate change. Based on the continuous Cenozoic fluvial and lacustrine sedimentary sequence in the Weihe Basin, central China, we carried out research on the content and...

The Cenozoic erosion history of the Himalaya-Karakoram, which is a function of tectonically driven uplift and monsoon climatic evolution in South Asia, remains elusive, especially prior to the Miocene. Here, we present a multiproxy geochemical and thermochronological analysis of the oldest samples available from the Arabian Sea, which we used to in...

Hominin fossils and Paleolithic sites of Early and Middle Pleistocene in China can provide information to understand hominin behavioral and living environments, while a chronological framework is the basis for analyzing hominin evolution, migration, and relationship with climate change during the Pleistocene era. In the past 20 years, hominin recor...

River aggradation or incision at different spatial-temporal scales are governed by tec-tonics, climate change, and surface processes which all adjust the ratio of sediment load to transport capacity of a channel. But how the river responds to differential tectonic and extreme climate events in a catchment is still poorly understood. Here, we addres...

Based on a study of the boron (B) isotope geochemistry of the loess-paleosol sequence of the Niuyangzigou section (NYZG) in Northeast (NE) China, the boron isotopic composition of paleo-rainwater (δ11Bpr) is used for the first time as a potential proxy for tracing changes in the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) since the mid-Pleistocene. The acid-s...

The interaction of surface erosion (e.g., fluvial incision) and tectonic uplift shapes the landform in the Tibetan Plateau. The Lhasa River flows toward the southwest across the central Gangdese Mountains in the southern Tibetan Plateau, characterized by a low-relief and high-elevation landscape. However, the evolution of low-relief topography and...

The Wufo Basin at the margin of the northeastern Tibet Plateau connects the upstream reaches of the Yellow River with the lowland catchment downstream, and the fluvial terrace sequence in this basin provides crucial clues to understand the evolution history of the Yellow River drainage system in relation to the uplift and outgrowth of the Tibetan P...

Previous researches had emphasized tectonic impacts on the fluvial system at the tectonically active areas, while the effects of lithology and local base level change have received relatively rare attention. Here we investigated fluvial landforms at different spatial scales, focusing on knickpoints and channel network reorganization from an area af...

The variability and dynamics of the Asian monsoon (AM, hereafter indicates both of the summer and winter monsoons.) at orbital and millennial timescales has attracted wide interest. Chinese loess deposits, covering an area of ~500 × 10 3 km 2 and with a thickness of several tens to more than three hundred meters, is an ideal continental archive to...

Chinese loess deposits provide a valuable archive of East Asian monsoon variations and compare well with marine oxygen isotope records. However, post-depositional pedogenesis disturbances during some long and warm interglacials may decrease the time resolution and recording efficiency of loess deposits. In this study, we build a simple multiple-sta...

One long-standing issue in the paleoclimate records is whether East Asian Summer Monsoon peaked in the early Holocene or mid-Holocene. Here, combining a set of transient earth system model simulations with proxy records, we propose that, over northern China, monsoon rainfall peaked in the early Holocene, while soil moisture and tree cover peaked in...

Significance Genetic studies show the founders of all living non-African populations expanded from Africa ca. 65 to 45 ka. This “late dispersal” model has been challenged by the discovery of isolated AMHs at caves in southern China suggested as early as ca. 120 ka. We assessed the age of early AMH fossils from five caves in this region using ancien...

Identifying the position of the Current Warm Period (CWP) in the context of the long-term climatic trend is vital for understanding the impact of human activity on climate change. Reconstructions of summer temperature and precipitation in eight subregions of China over the past 22,000 years show that the CWP summer temperature and precipitation in...

Cycling of CO2 between the oceans and the atmosphere has significant impacts on the global climate change. The accurate reconstructions of paleo-pH and atmospheric-oceanic carbon cycling using geochemical tracers (e.g., δ¹¹B, B/Ca) in marine carbonates are reviewed in this work, including the fundamental mechanisms and the remaining challenges in t...

This paper describes an assemblage of diverse floodplain facies of reworked loess (facies b, c) in a Middle Pleistocene monsoonal setting of the Hanzhong Basin, central China. The vertical and lateral sedimentary sequences show changing energy conditions. Apart from the highest energy in the channel facies (facies a), a relatively high energy flood...

Previous numerical-analytical approaches have suggested that the main range divide prefers to migrate towards the high uplift flank in the asymmetric tectonic uplift pattern. However, natural examples recording these processes and further verifying the numerical simulations results, are still lacking. In this study, the landscape features, and the...

The Weihe Basin, enclosed by the Chinese Loess Plateau to the north and the Qinling Mountains to the south, is an outstanding, world-class continental site for obtaining high-resolution multi-proxy records that reflect environmental changes spanning most of the Cenozoic. Previous geophysical and sedimentary studies indicate that the basin hosts 600...

Climate factors, including precipitation and related vegetation cover, which are vital features of monsoon climates, differ across global/regional areas and are highly variable on a catchment scale. The correlation between fluvial processes and the phases of monsoon climate change are poorly understood in the north-eastern Tibetan Plateau (NETP), p...

In order to fully understand East Asian monsoon variation and their regional heterogeneity at orbital to suborbital timescales, we investigate a loess-paleosol sequence(34.95°N, 113.38°E) at Mangshan, Zhengzhou, Central China, which is located in monsoon central region and has a high dust accumulation rate, therefore an ideal paleoclimatic record f...

East Asian monsoon variability in the Pliocene warm world has not been sufficiently studied because of the lack of direct records. We present a high-resolution precipitation record from Pliocene fluvial-lacustrine sequences in the Weihe Basin, Central China, a region sensitive to the East Asian monsoon. The record shows an abrupt monsoon shift at ~...

Knowledge of the establishment of the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River is essential for understanding the origin of the Yellow River and the interplay between tectonic deformation and climate change in the region. However, the timing of the integration of the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River is debated, ranging from the Late...

In recent years copulas have been widely employed in multivariate modeling of hydrological extremes. However, anthropogenic and climate changes have greatly impacted the probabilistic behavior of these extremes and have challenged the stationarity assumption of the marginal distributions of individual characteristics of the extremes as well as thei...

In recent years, anthropogenic and climate changes have greatly impacted the probabilistic behavior of hydrometeorological variables, and have challenged the stationarity assumption of marginal distributions of individual characteristics of variables as well as their temporal dependence structure inherent in copula-based modelling. This study devel...

It is generally believed that water vapour from the North Atlantic transported by the mid‐latitude westerlies dominates precipitation variations in arid Central Asia, where monsoonal water vapour source is beyond the reach. This study reexamines water vapour sources for arid Central Asia based on daily reanalysis data. The results reveal two water...

Late Miocene and Pliocene climate changes provide an analogue for understanding linkages between variations in precipitation, the intensity of the Asian Monsoon (AM) and vegetation in a warm world with high atmospheric CO2. This study presents a reconstruction of vegetation and paleoclimate based on a pollen sequence between ~10.8 and 7.2 Ma, in ad...

Magnetic susceptibility in sediments has been thoroughly studied as a paleoenvironmental proxy over the last decades. However, it is unknown to what extent magnetic susceptibility variation is also a diagnostic of different sediment sources. Here we investigate if multiple magnetic susceptibility-based parameters can effectively be used as sediment...

We investigate the phased evolution and variation of the South Asian monsoon and resulting weathering intensity and physical erosion in the Himalaya–Karakoram Mountains since late Pliocene time ( c. 3.4 Ma) using a comprehensive approach. Neodymium and strontium isotopic compositions and single-grain zircon U–Pb age spectra reveal the sources of th...