The significance of maar volcanoes for palaeoclimatic studies in China

Abstract

Abstract The sediments of maar lakes often provide paleoenvironmental records which are highly suitable for palaeoclimatic studies. The main advantages of the records from maar lakes compared with other lacustrine records are as follows: First, the presence of varves (annually laminated layers) and tephra layers, as well as other materials (like terrestrial plant macrofossils, charcoals, organic carbon, organic shells) suitable for isotopic dating (like AMS 14C, 210Pb, 137Cs, 238U/230Th, 40Ar/39Ar), provides the possibility of developing several independent chronologies, enabling the development of robust, high-resolution chronologies. Second, maars and maar lakes can provide continuous sedimentary records spanning tens of thousands of years (Tianyang Maar in China is hosted the longest known record spanning at least 400\u202fkyr BP) that are ideal for the investigation of climate change on different timescales, including orbital, millennial-centennial and annual-decadal. Third, recent studies of biomarkers based on long-chain alkenones (LCAs) and glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (GDGTs) have demonstrated the potential of maar lakes for quantitative paleotemperature reconstruction. In this study, we review some of the more significant achievements of palaeoclimatic research based on maar lake sediment sequences from China, with the focus on chronology, multiple timescales and quantitative paleoclimatic reconstruction.