Late Glacial and Holocene vegetation and climate history of an alpine wetland on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

This study provides a vegetation and climate history of an alpine wetland in the centre of China’s Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau (QTP) over the last 14.8 ka. High resolution climate proxies include vegetation (pollen), geochemical (Ba, Rb, δ¹³C) and physical (particle size and magnetic susceptibility) data; optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and AMS radiocarbon dating were used to reconstruct the environmental changes in the wetland ecosystem. Based on physical and geochemical proxies, the sucession divided into five stratigraphic units encompassing time intervals of 14.76–14.31, 14.31–13.17, 13.17–4.47, 4.47–0.51 and 0.51–0 ka. The average sedimentation rate of all these units was 0.098 mm/a. The study showed that this ecosystem was sensitive to climate change.