Haizhou Ma

Holocene lake-level changes of Hurleg Lake on northeastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau and possible forcing mechanism

The palaeoshorelines of a lake are the direct geomorphic evidences to reflect past water levels and record information on palaeoclimatic changes. Previous research indicates that the timing and forcing mechanisms of climatic change on the northeastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (NE QTP) are still controversial. Here, we report quartz optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) ages for beach deposits and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C age for plant remains, shoreline features and geomorphic exposures that contribute to a reconstruction of the lake-level history of Hurleg Lake on the NE QTP. The results imply that (1) three high lake levels are dated to 6.8–6.4, 5.0–4.7 and 2.2–1.4 kyr, corresponding to relatively wet and stable climate from pollen records of sediment core in this lake during mid–late Holocene; (2) the highest lake-level period occurred at 5.0–4.7 kyr, which is almost synchronous with the highest effective moisture phase from synthesized lake records influenced by the Westerlies and (3) no beach deposits around Hurleg Lake and lower lacustrine deposits in Toson Lake were found during early Holocene, suggesting lower lake level of Hurleg Lake in this period. These results might imply that the Westerlies and local topography rather than Asian summer monsoon dominate the moisture availability in this region during the Holocene.

Sample preparation for isotopic determination of boron in clay sediments

The procedures of sample preparation for isotopic determination of boron in clay sediments is very cumbersome, by far, there haven’t been relevant reports on that. In order to establish an effective method for sample preparation, a series of experiments were carried out. In this paper, boron in clay sediments was extracted with HCl solution and purified by two-step ion exchange method. Extracted HCl solution should be adjusted to alkalescency before passing through the Amberlite IRA 743 resin column due to the fact that Amberlite IRA 743 resin absorbs boron only from alkalescent solution. However, a mass of hydroxides of Al and Fe will be precipitated when the extracted HCl solution becomes alkalescent. Hydroxides of Al and Fe have a strong adsorption capacity for boron, which can cause boron isotope fractionation. To treat precipitated hydroxides of Al and Fe, four procedures, namely direct ion exchange (DRIE), decationizing ion exchange (DCIE), once sedimentation ion exchange (OSIE) and repeated sedimentation ion exchange (RSIE) were used and assessed. The influences of the four procedures on separation and extraction and isotopic composition of boron in experimental solutions and clay sediments were also discussed. According to the results, the DRIE, DCIE and OSIE are improper. The result of sample determination indicates that when extracting boron via RSIE, with the increase of precipitation times, there’s an obvious decrease in boron content in the precipitated hydroxides while a sharp increase in recovery of boron and it is favorable for weakening the influence of boron isotope fractionation. But the process of RSIE is time consuming and it may introduce boron. It needs further research to establish a more effective sample preparation method for isotopic determination of boron in clay sediments.