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Monsoon-driven changes in aeolian and fluvial sediment input to the central Red Sea recorded throughout the last 200 000 years

Monsoon-driven changes in aeolian and fluvial sediment input to the central Red Sea recorded throughout the last 200 000 years
Monsoon-driven changes in aeolian and fluvial sediment input to the central Red Sea recorded throughout the last 200 000 years
Climatic and associated hydrological changes controlled the transport processes and composition of the sediments in the central Red Sea during the last ca. 200 kyr. Three different source areas for mineral dust are identified. The dominant source is located in the eastern Sahara (Sudan and southernmost Egypt). We identify its imprint on Red Sea sediments by high smectite and Ti contents, low 87Sr/ 86Sr, and high εNd. The availability of deflatable sediments was controlled by the intensity of tropical rainfall and vegetation cover over North Africa linked to the African monsoon. Intense dust input to the Red Sea occurred during arid phases, and low input occurred during humid phases. A second, less significant source indicated by palygorskite input is probably located on the eastern Arabian Peninsula and/or Mesopotamia, while the presence of kaolinite suggests an additional minor dust source in northern Egypt. Our grain size data reflect episodes of fluvial sediment discharge to the central Red Sea and document the variable strength in response to all of the precession-paced insolation maxima during our study interval including both those that were strong enough to trigger sapropel formation in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and those that were not. The African humid period most strongly expressed in our Red Sea record was the one during the Eemian last interglacial at ca. 125 ka (when the Baraka River was far more active than today), followed by those at 198, 108, 84, and 6 ka.
1814-9332
37-52
Ehrmann, Werner
e7d1fdd7-8599-49a9-9247-51de0ad5d70d
Wilson, Paul A.
f940a9f0-fa5a-4a64-9061-f0794bfbf7c6
Arz, Helge W.
8362a4ea-13b9-4492-afc4-fc6ca1987fcd
Schulz, Hartmut
deb27bd8-49d3-4180-9992-393f048416f7
Schmiedl, Gerhard
bb0f2d73-dd05-4624-b590-497a224fd6ae
Ehrmann, Werner
e7d1fdd7-8599-49a9-9247-51de0ad5d70d
Wilson, Paul A.
f940a9f0-fa5a-4a64-9061-f0794bfbf7c6
Arz, Helge W.
8362a4ea-13b9-4492-afc4-fc6ca1987fcd
Schulz, Hartmut
deb27bd8-49d3-4180-9992-393f048416f7
Schmiedl, Gerhard
bb0f2d73-dd05-4624-b590-497a224fd6ae

Ehrmann, Werner, Wilson, Paul A., Arz, Helge W., Schulz, Hartmut and Schmiedl, Gerhard (2024) Monsoon-driven changes in aeolian and fluvial sediment input to the central Red Sea recorded throughout the last 200 000 years. Climate of the Past, 20 (1), 37-52. (doi:10.5194/cp-20-37-2024).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Climatic and associated hydrological changes controlled the transport processes and composition of the sediments in the central Red Sea during the last ca. 200 kyr. Three different source areas for mineral dust are identified. The dominant source is located in the eastern Sahara (Sudan and southernmost Egypt). We identify its imprint on Red Sea sediments by high smectite and Ti contents, low 87Sr/ 86Sr, and high εNd. The availability of deflatable sediments was controlled by the intensity of tropical rainfall and vegetation cover over North Africa linked to the African monsoon. Intense dust input to the Red Sea occurred during arid phases, and low input occurred during humid phases. A second, less significant source indicated by palygorskite input is probably located on the eastern Arabian Peninsula and/or Mesopotamia, while the presence of kaolinite suggests an additional minor dust source in northern Egypt. Our grain size data reflect episodes of fluvial sediment discharge to the central Red Sea and document the variable strength in response to all of the precession-paced insolation maxima during our study interval including both those that were strong enough to trigger sapropel formation in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and those that were not. The African humid period most strongly expressed in our Red Sea record was the one during the Eemian last interglacial at ca. 125 ka (when the Baraka River was far more active than today), followed by those at 198, 108, 84, and 6 ka.

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Published date: 3 January 2024
Additional Information: The German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) financially supported the studies of Werner Ehrmann and Gerhard Schmiedl (grant nos. Eh 89/23-1, Schm 1180/26-1). Paul A. Wilson was supported by the Royal Society (Challenge Grant CH160073 and Wolfson Merit Award WM140011), NERC (grant no. NE/X000869/1), and University of Southampton's GCRF strategic development grant 519016. The “Open Access Publishing Fund” of Leipzig University supported by the German Research Foundation within the programme “Open Access Publication Funding” covered the publication costs. Publisher Copyright: © Copyright:

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Local EPrints ID: 487578
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/487578
ISSN: 1814-9332
PURE UUID: 6fa3b969-a577-4a51-ba58-faa48c928571
ORCID for Paul A. Wilson: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-6425-8906

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Date deposited: 27 Feb 2024 18:27
Last modified: 24 Apr 2024 01:36

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Contributors

Author: Werner Ehrmann
Author: Paul A. Wilson ORCID iD
Author: Helge W. Arz
Author: Hartmut Schulz
Author: Gerhard Schmiedl

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