干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

The Mid-Pleistocene climate transition (MPT) is a complex global change leading to Late Pleistocene ice ages with increased mean ice volume and dominant 100-ka cycle. However, the timing and structure of the MPT is still an open question both in marine and land sediments. In order to identify and explore the existence of MPT in terrestrial aeolian sediments, we carried out high-resolution rock magnetic analyses on aeolian loess sediments in the central Loess :Plateau, North China. The results show that the MPT occurred at 0.93Ma and ended at 0.62Ma. This transition event maybe related to the aggravation of dry, the forming and expanding of desert in Asian interior triggered by the uplift of the Tibetan plateau besides global ice volume and solar insolation.