Publication Date:
2019
Description:
〈p〉Reconstructions of past Saharan dust deposition in marine sediments provide foundational records of North African climate over time scales of 10〈sup〉3〈/sup〉 to 10〈sup〉6〈/sup〉 years. Previous dust records show primarily glacial-interglacial variability in the Pleistocene, in contrast to other monsoon records showing strong precessional variability. Here, we present the first Saharan dust record spanning multiple glacial cycles obtained using 〈sup〉230〈/sup〉Th normalization, an improved method of calculating fluxes. Contrary to previous data, our record from the West African margin demonstrates high correlation with summer insolation and limited glacial-interglacial changes, indicating coherent variability in the African monsoon belt throughout the late Pleistocene. Our results demonstrate that low-latitude Saharan dust emissions do not vary synchronously with high- and mid-latitude dust emissions, and they call into question the use of existing Plio-Pleistocene dust records to investigate links between climate and hominid evolution.〈/p〉
Electronic ISSN:
2375-2548
Topics:
Natural Sciences in General
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