Zhongping Lai

Shantou University | STU · Institute of Marine Sciences

Microplastic pollution is widespread, affecting even the remotest places on Earth. However, observational data on microplastic deposition in deserts, which comprise 21% of the total land area, are relatively rare. The current study aims to address the knowledge gap in terms of microplastic distribution in Asian deserts. The Badain Jaran Desert in C...

The Earth has gone through multiple ice ages in the past million years. Understanding the ice age dynamics is crucial to paleoclimatic study, and is helpful for addressing future climate challenges. Though ice ages are paced by variations in Earth’s orbit geometry, how various climatic system components on the Earth respond to insolation forcing an...

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is a hotspot of earth system research, and understanding its landscape and ecosystem evolution has been hampered by the lack of time‐constrained geological records. Geochronological data from 14 loess sites covering a large region in the Tibetan interior show that the TP loess, rather than accumulating during glacial period...

Homo sapiens dispersed from Africa into Eurasia multiple times in the Middle and Late Pleistocene. The route, across northeastern Africa into the Levant, is a viable terrestrial corridor, as the present harsh southern Levant would probably have been savannahs and grasslands during the last interglaciation. Here, we document wetland sediments with l...

The paper presents a comprehensive review on lake-level history of Qinghai Lake since marine isotope stage (MIS) 5, after re-examining the sedimentary and geomorphological nature of highstand deposits and re-evaluating the published dating results (318 luminescence ages and 17 ¹⁴C ages) of shorelines, near shoreline, lacustrine, alluvial, and aeoli...

The Kuroshio Current significantly influences the exchange of physical, chemical, and biological properties in the western Pacific Ocean, while its strength and path in the Okinawa Trough during the Holocene remains unclear. Previous studies have not established consistent conclusions due to the existence of multiple solutions for sediment provenan...

粤东地区是研究华南沿海地区古地貌变迁及海陆相互作用的重要窗口. 本文提供了 汕尾及揭阳惠来地区实测沉积物粒度组成数据和微体古生物组合数据，为进一步开展该区 域第四纪研究提供了基础资料. 微体古生物鉴定结果表明，样品中所含的有孔虫、介形虫和 硅藻化石均属于第四纪常见种. 综合结果表明，陆丰钻孔 LFZK05 和惠来钻孔 HLZK02 的岩 芯中可能存在三个海相层，说明汕尾陆丰和揭阳惠来地区在第四纪以来至少经历过三次海 侵. 推测最年轻的海侵层沉积于全新世. 该全新世海侵层见于陆丰螺河沿岸的钻孔 LFZK04 中，但在更为上游的钻孔 LFZK03 中却没有发现，这可能说明汕尾陆丰地区全新世海侵范 围没有到达钻孔 LFZK03（自海岸线沿螺河上游约 10 km 处）的位置；但也不能排除钻孔 LFZ...

It is crucial to establish a robust chronology for understanding late Quaternary sedimentation processes and environment changes in response to sea-level fluctuation on shelves. The shelf of the East China Sea (ECS) is featured by huge terrigenous sediment input and striking land -sea interaction during the late Quaternary. However, there remains c...

Given its high accumulation rate in sediments, the endorheic basin in arid regions plays a crucial role inreconstructing paleo-environment. However, it would not provide high-resolution climatic records if significantwind-eroded depositional hiatuses were inevitable within a severe wind environment. Unconformable contactshave been found during fiel...

The relationship between climate change and hominin evolution over the Pleistocene in East Asia is still poorly understood, in particular due to the limited number of archaeological finds and fossils with reliable chronologies. Paleolithic sites preserved in loess-paleosol sequences in eastern Chinese Loess Plateau provide prospective evidence for...

Loess-paleosol sequences have been used in Asia to study climate and environmental changes during the Quaternary. The scarcity of age control datasets and proxy indices analysis data for Asian loess has limited our understanding of loess depositional processes and the reconstruction of paleoclimatic changes from loess-paleosol records. In this stud...

The role of natural forces in ecological degradation remains controversial owing to the scarcity of records of past land cover destruction with no or less anthropogenic disturbance. Here, we reconstructed land cover changes during the Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS3) in the Nanling Mountains in southern China using the δ13C and saturation magnetisatio...

In 2019 a sinkhole (doline) occurred in Late Devensian till above fissured limestone in northern England. Most sediment plugging the fissure was evacuated down into a karstic drainage system. The residual sedimentary fill comprises three main lithofacies, dated using optically stimulated luminescence to between 170.7 ± 40.0 and 56.1 ± 13.5 ka. The...

The mechanisms and processes of precipitation change during warm climatic periods, such as the Holocene, may provide critical insights into future regional precipitation trends in the arid and semiarid Central Asian core in the context of potential global warming. Previous studies have reconstructed different effective moisture changes during the w...

Previous studies of Microplastics (Mps) pollution focused on abundance, effect on organisms, and origins. Mps could also be indicators to evaluate pollution level. Beach Quality Indices (BQIs) are useful in understanding Mps pollution level. This study is to assess magnitude, impact and quality of beaches using BQIs, by determining abundance, shape...

Quantitative research on the sediment source to sink process is critical to revealing the evolution of the Earth's surface. The fingerprinting technique is useful for sediment source detection, and machine learning methods are being used with this technique. However, paleo-provenance research with limited measured data from sediment cores is not ad...

A reliable chronology is essential to understand deltaic sedimentation processes in response to sea-level fluctuations and climatic changes. In the Pearl River Delta (PRD), high-resolution chronostratigraphy is still limited which hinders the detailed interpretation of sedimentary history. In this study, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dati...

The neritic region of the Chaoshan plain is located on the northeastern (NE) boundary of the South China Sea (SCS). Despite the extensive research on the stratigraphic architecture and sedimentary processes within the Chaoshan plain, the neighboring neritic area remains largely unexplored. In this study, we provide a new set of ages on seventeen qu...

In the past decades, most Tibetan lakes experienced large-scale rises in response to current global warming, conflicting with the limited amplitudes and gradual fluctuation in shoreline-based lake-levels that occurred over the Holocene. The discrepancy is a critical issue in understanding the regional response to global climate. In this study, we r...

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) hosts the largest alpine ecosystem in the world, and aeolian loess is an essential component of this ecosystem and landscape. However, little is known of loess distribution and fate, owing to the climate and landscape varying dramatically between Quaternary glacial and interglacial cycles. Recent research suggests that the...

Lake hydrological fluctuations on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are highly sensitive to global climate change, which can be reconstructed directly by dating paleoshorelines representing past lake-levels. In this study, we reconstructed the Holocene lake-level history of Taro Co lake system (Taro Co, Zabuye Salt lake and Lagkor Co) on the southwestern TP...

Deltaic sediments provide a window for investigating delta development processes and the effects of human activities. Despite the fact that numerous studies have been conducted in the Pearl River Delta (PRD), the chronological data are still very limited, which hinder the detailed interpretation of the sedimentary records. The current study aims to...

Accurate chronology plays a crucial role in reconstructing delta evolution. Radiocarbon (¹⁴C) and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating are widely used to establish a stratigraphic chronology of the late Quaternary sediments. The Chaoshan plain is located on the southern coast of China and borders the South China Sea. The thickness of Quat...

Lakes in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) provide indications of the past global climate change over this vast elevated highland. However, the patterns of Holocene lake-level variations in the central TP and their relevance to climate change are still unclear, especially for the middle and late Holocene. Located in the central TP, Dagze Co presents a numbe...

Chao merchants, together with Jin and Hui merchants, are known as the three traditional Chinese merchant groups. Jin and Hui merchants, once monopolistic with monarchy franchise rights, have already declined, while Chao merchants, as a private group focusing on overseas trade, continue to grow. Previous research on Chao merchants mainly focused on...

The Hulunbuir dune field (HLB) is situated near the northern limit of the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM), and vulnerable to climate change. The aeolian sand–paleosol sequences of this region are crucial for understanding the past landform processes in response to climate change, but not yet understood well due to chronological controversies. Here...

The divergent patterns of Permian–Triassic mass extinction (PTME) have been extensively documented in varying water depth settings. We here investigated fossil assemblages and sedimentary microfacies on high-resolution samples from two adjacent sections of the South China Block: Chongyang from shallow-water platform and Chibi from deeper-water slop...

Flood activity in arid region is not only crucial process for evolution of rivers and terminal salt lakes, but also sensitive indicator of paleoclimatic changes. Here, slackwater paleoflood sediments of the Nalinggele River, the largest river in the Qaidam Basin, were studied with optically stimulated luminescence dating and grain size analysis to...

The Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, known as the world’s “third pole”, is home to several large rivers in Asia. Its geomorphology is exceptionally vulnerable to climate change, which has had a significant impact on historical riverbed development through runoff and sedimentation processes. However, there is limited research combining climate change, sedim...

The East China Sea (ECS) is featured by the broad continental shelf, huge terrigenous sediment input and striking river-sea interaction during the Quaternary. Despite the numerous studies, mostly on the delta, coastal and inner shelf areas, the late Quaternary stratigraphy and sedimentary environment on the mid-outer ECS shelf were poorly documente...

The source area of the Yellow River (SAYR) in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau (TP) has a series of lakes with an outflowing stream that crosses an active left-lateral strike-slip fault. How and when these lakes began to flow into the Yellow River remains an open question. Here, using geologic maps and a digital elevation model (DEM), we map the dr...

The Nihewan Basin in northern China is one of the most dense occurrences of Early Pleistocene vertebrate paleontological and Paleolithic sites outside of Africa and thus plays a key role in the study of biochronostratigraphy and early human evolution in East Asia. The Xiashagou Fauna, as the first systematically studied fauna in the basin, is usual...

The Bohai Sea is a semi-enclosed continental shelf sea in northern China. Three transgression layers have been identified from the Late Quaternary strata in the western Bohai Sea and the coastal regions, which provide critical information on Late Quaternary sea-level fluctuations and landscape development. The three transgression layers were previo...

Reliable chronology is critical for reconstructing estuarine delta process. In this study, detailed chronological framework has been performed on a core HPQK01 (52 m in depth) from the central Pearl River delta (PRD) of China. Both quartz OSL and feldspar post-IR IRSL (pIRIR) methods for late Pleistocene sediments, as well as radiocarbon dating for...

Beaches are an integral part of coastal tourism, but they are deteriorated by the beachgoers and recreational activities due to lack of adequate beach environmental awareness and management. Litter is widely distributed in marine and coastal environment and has been considered a severe concern. In China investigations to determine the beach litter...

Lacustrine sediments in areas of arid Central Asia are sensitive records for paleoenvironmental variations largely associated with the westerlies, targeting the possible transitional linkage between the North Atlantic climate zone and monsoonal eastern Asia. An extensive cognition of paleoenvironmental proxies is a precondition for better decipheri...

Late Holocene is a key period for the formation of modern deltas, and environmental magnetism is commonly used to infer paleoenvironmental information. Magnetic properties of bulk sediments are influenced by both hydrodynamic sorting and post-depositional pedogenesis and diagenesis, and the relationship between them is unclear. Detailed magnetic st...

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) has essential impacts on the climate in Asia and even in the Northern Hemisphere. It serves as the headwaters for at least ten large rivers that provide sustaining waters for >1 billion people, and is a dust source for downwind areas from the Chinese Loess Plateau to the Pacific Ocean and Greenland. Over the last few decade...

The Datong Basin in northern China is notorious for its geogenic arsenic (As)-polluted groundwater hosted by late Quaternary strata. Deciphering the mechanism of arsenic pollution requires an understanding of stratigraphic architecture and depositional processes, which, however, are hindered by weak chronological data. Here we utilized the opticall...

When and how was the Tibetan Plateau (TP), one of the least habitable regions on Earth, occupied by humans are important questions in the research of human evolution. Among tens of Paleolithic archaeological sites discovered over the past decades, only five are considered coeval with or older than the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, ∼27–19 ka). As one o...

Current conditions in the southern Levant are hyperarid, and local communities rely on fossil subsurface water resources. The timing of more favourable wetter periods and also their spatial characteristics are not yet well constrained. To improve our understanding of past climate and environmental conditions in the deserts of the southern Levant, s...

Plain Language Summary Glacial climate is characterized by millennial‐scale variations in polar temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration. The observed similarities between the shape of atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic temperature records, derived from Antarctic ice cores, have led to a common view that variations in both are dominated by a common...

Widespread ocean anoxia has been proposed to cause biotic mass extinction across the Permian–Triassic (P–Tr) boundary. However, its temporal dynamics during this crisis period are unclear. The Liangfengya section in the South China Block contains continuous marine sedimentary and fossil records. Two pulses of biotic extinction and two mass extincti...

The Qaidam Basin preserves the largest Yardang field on Earth, and yardangs are intriguing landforms for studies of the paleo-environment and aeolian processes. Formation of yardangs involved both the initial lacustrine deposition and the subsequent wind-erosion processes. However, the timings of both processes in the Qaidam Basin are still controv...

Former lakes and wetlands can provide valuable insights to the late Pleistocene environments encountered by the first humans to enter the Levant from Africa. Fluvial incision along Wadi Gharandal in hyperarid southern Jordan has exposed remnants of a small riverine wetland that accumulated as a sedimentary sequence up to ~ 20 m thick. We conducted...

Establishing a reliable chronological framework for sediments is crucial to the reconstruction of evolution process of estuarine delta, and the study of regional paleoenvironmental history, e.g., sea level fluctuations due to global climatic changes. High resolution chronology is still very limited for Holocene sediments in the Pearl River delta (P...

Yardangs, as typical aeolian landforms, are extensively identified in arid/hyper-arid areas on Earth and other terrestrial bodies. In this review, based on analyses of morphology, distribution, age, climate, and geologic condition of yardangs worldwide, we (1) assess the impacts of various controlling factors on yardang development to generalize a...

Parameters of geomorphological characteristics are critical for research on yardangs. However, which are low-cost, accurate, and automatic or semi-automatic methods for extracting these parameters are limited. We present here semi-automatic techniques for this purpose. They are object-based image analysis (OBIA) and Canny edge detection (CED), usin...

The paleohydrology and geomorphology of southeastern Arabia after 130 ka suggests complex climatic records in the area considered a potential route for human dispersal Out of Africa. Understanding the past hydrological systems is essential to relate the lithic assemblages at the surface to a habitable environment. Climatic records such as speleothe...

Landslides provide a means to study tectonic and climate forcing on hillslopes in mountainous terrain. Landslides are common in the upper Yellow River valley on the northeastern Tibetan Plateau, some of which even blocked the Yellow River. However, uncertainty remains on the trigger factors for these palaeolandslides, and emplacement timing of pala...

Fluvial terraces are common in the tectonically active western Kunlun Mountains (WKLM) region, northwestern margin of the Tibetan Plateau, and incision of rivers since 5 ka was attributed to the accelerated uplift of the WKLM. However, it is difficult to evaluate their tectonic or climatic origin without detailed chronology. In this study, Opticall...

The Yuanmou H. erectus site is generally considered to be one of the oldest hominin sites in southern China. The chronology of this site has been repeatedly investigated using magnetostratigraphy since its first discovery in the 1960s. However, there are multiple interpretations of the magnetostratigraphy due to the complexity of the sedimentary en...

Quaternary studies are very limited in Jordan, even though this area (including the Dead Sea drainage and desert) is a focus for such studies. Lacustrine archives in Jordan allow reconstruction of past climate conditions. We carried out an intense investigation on late Pleistocene lake sediments in Jordan Rift Valley and Jordanian Plateau with sect...

Outburst floods can have disastrous impacts on people, and are an important driving force in landscape change and have been studied widely on Earth. In China, although outburst floods have occurred frequently, there has been relatively little systematic investigation of the controlling factor. Here, we review outburst floods in China in terms of th...

The Yangtze Plain (floodplains in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River) is a region with numerous lakes, including the three largest freshwater lakes in China, i.e. Poyang Lake (PYL), Dongting Lake (DTL), and Taihu Lake (THL). The formation mechanism of these lakes offers insights into the ongoing debate concerning the interaction betw...

The Yiyuan hominin fossil site is one of the few localities in China where a partial skullcap and several loose teeth of Homo erectus have been discovered. Yiyuan was previously assigned broadly to the Middle Pleistocene by biostratigraphical correlation and ESR/U-series dating. Here, we report the first application of a radio-isotopic dating metho...

Kobresia pastures in the eastern Tibetan highlands occupy 450000 km ² and form the world’s largest pastoral alpine ecosystem. The main constituent is an endemic dwarf sedge, Kobresia pygmaea , which forms a lawn with a durable turf cover anchored by a felty root mat, and occurs from 3000 m to nearly 6000 m a.s.l. The existence and functioning of th...

Recently, extreme climate variation has been studied in different parts of the world, and the present study aims to study the impacts of climate extremes on vegetation. In this study, we analyzed the spatiotemporal variations of temperature and precipitation extremes during 1960–2015 in the Yangtze River Basin (YRB) using the Mann-Kendall (MK) test...

This study investigated the late Quaternary climate and environmental characteristics of two tributary valleys (Xingmu and Depu Valleys) in the Parlung Zangbo Valley, southeastern Tibetan Plateau. Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) samples collected from moraines at the mouth of Xingmu Valley produce a wide age range from 13.9 ka to 76 ka. The...

The establishment and evolution of the Asian monsoons and arid interior have been linked to uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, retreat of the inland proto-Paratethys Sea and global cooling during the Cenozoic. However, the respective role of these driving mechanisms remains poorly constrained. This is partly due to a lack of continental records coverin...

The Chinese empire experienced a large expansion to the arid regions in the west during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE). The Hexi Corridor, the Yanqi Basin, the southeastern part of the Junggar Basin and the Tarim Basin became part of the empire. The expansion of the Han Dynasty was accompanied by the significant intensification of irrigation farm...