Here we discussed rapid response of the cave temperature and vegetation to the four Dansgaard-Oeschger cold and warm cycles during 50-40 kaBP based on results of oxygen and carbon stable isotopic compositions from a stalagmite in Tangshan, Nanjing. It is found that the amount of C3 vegetation relative to C4-type declines during the D-O warm events, indicating the decrease of the effective mete-oric precipitation. Compared with O-isotope records of the Greenland ice core, the stalagmite record displays a very similar pattern to Greenland ice core record over the dec-ade-century time scale, suggesting that the changes of the East Asian monsoon climate are in accordance with the high-latitude polar climate in the short-term time scale. The age of the ice-rafted H5 event in the stalagmite record, how-ever, preceded that of Greenland ice cores by 2 ka. This out of phase between the remote areas cannot be yet proven be-cause the two time scales were determined from different dating methods.
By analyzing U and Th isotopic compositions of 41 samples in two stalagmites from Hulu Cave, Nanjing, we first discovered that variations of 238U and δ234U0 along the stalagmite growth-sequence (covering a period from 75 to 18 kaBP) are in high similarity to summer insolation curve at 33°N and δ18O-based climate record of the studied stalagmites. The concentration of 238U is mainly controlled by content of organic matter in the soil above the cave. This mechanism can be used to explain our result that 238U curve of stalagmites is in phase with fluctuation of the δ18O record of the same stalagmites and summer insolation at cave locality. However, 238U concentration curve vs. age is, in amplitude, inconsistent with the climatic curves, possibly due to complex processes of soil-water-rock interaction. δ234U0 indicates pedogenic intensity of soil profile above the cave and sensitively reflects alternations of pedogenesis and aeolian accumulation processes of Xiashu loess in Nanjing. Consequently,
A 400-mm-long stalagmite from Tangshan Cave, Nanjing has beenanalyzed by a high-precision TIMS-U series dating method and also determined for oxygen and carbon stable isotopic compositions. The results provided a high-resolution paleoclimate record for eastern China during a time interval (from 54 000 to 19 000 aBP) of the last glaciation. The continuous record of oxygen-18 variations in the stalagmite, indicating a precipitation history of the East Asian monsoon, shows not only signals of the Heinrich events, but also the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles which are first found in the last glacial climate record of the East Asian monsoon area. Although the stalagmite-based climatic signals match well with the GRIP ice core record, some differences between the two re-cords can be recognized: (1) The last glacial climate changes in eastern China exhibited a long-term remarkably cooling trend, superimposed on which were four successive Bond’s cycles illus-trated by the δ18O curve. This strong cooling tendency may be an effect of the strong summer mon-soon event during the MIS 3 over the Tibetan Plateau. (2) There exist some phase differences of 1000—2000 years between the cooling events in the stalagmite-based climate signal and the GRIP ice core record. Such differences should be further verified by calibrations of multiple dating meth-ods.