Early Pleistocene Integration of the Yellow River I Detrital-Zircon Evidence from the North China Plain

Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 546 (2020) 109691 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/palaeo Early Pleistocene integration of the Yellow River I: Detrital-zircon evidence from the North China Plain T ⁎ ⁎⁎ Guoqiao Xiaoa,b, , Yuqi Suna, Jilong Yangc, , Qiuzhen Yind, Guillaume Dupont-Nivete,f,g, Alexis Lichth, Alan E. Kehewi, Yunzhuang Huc, Jianzhen Gengc, Gaowen Daia, Qingyu Zhaoa, Zhipeng Wua,d a State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, School of Earth Sciences, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China b Hubei Key Laboratory of Critical Zone Evolution, School of Geography and Information Engineering, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China c Tianjin Centre, China Geological Survey, Key Laboratory of Coast Geo-Environment, Tianjin 300170, China d Georges Lemaître Centre for Earth and Climate Research, Earth and Life Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain, Louvain-La-Neuve 1348, Belgium e Geosciences Rennes UMR 6118, CNRS-Université de Rennes 1, Campus de Beaulieu, 35042 Rennes Cedex, France f Institute of Earth and Environmental Science, Potsdam University, 14476 Potsdam, Germany g Key Laboratory of Orogenic Belts and Crustal Evolution, Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China h Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA i Department of Geosciences, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008, USA ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Editor: Paul Hesse The Yellow River (YR) is one of the longest and most sediment-laden rivers in the world. However, the timing Keywords: and mechanism of the integration of upstream and downstream reaches of the YR is still debated, with estimates Quaternary ranging from > 34 Ma to ~0.15 Ma. Here we address this debate by studying the detrital-zircon age spectra from Late Pliocene three boreholes that penetrate late Miocene sediment in the lower YR floodplain. Our results show a significant Sanmen Gorge provenance change between 1.6 and 1.5 Ma marking the input of new materials from the Middle Reach and/or Provenance the Upper Reach, suggesting the upstream and downstream parts of the YR were connected between 1.6 and River capture 1.5 Ma. This late establishment of the YR is not consistent with the timing of uplift of the northeastern Tibetan Sea level changes Plateau and surrounding mountain ranges and thus precludes a tectonic control; however, it follows the Plio- Pleistocene onset of large-amplitude sea level changes, associated with a worldwide increase of fluvial incision. We propose that Plio-Pleistocene base level fluctuations likely triggered fluvial erosion propagating upstream from the YR lower reach and were thus the main driving force for river integration. 1. Introduction history of the northeastern Tibetan Plateau in the Upper Reaches (Zhu, 1989; Li et al., 1996, 1997), the origin of the Chinese Loess Plateau in The 5464 km long Yellow River, or Huang He, is the 2nd longest the Middle Reaches (Nie et al., 2015), and the formation of the North river in China and the 6th longest river in the world. It originates on the China Plain and continental shelf in the Lower Reaches (Zhang et al., northeastern Tibetan Plateau, makes a great angular bend around the 2004; Yao et al., 2017). Ordos Block, flows out of the Sanmen Gorge and on to the North China Despite over a century of scientific investigations (Willis, 1907; Plain, and finally empties into the Bohai Sea (Fig. 1). It traverses a Wang, 1925; Barbour, 1933), there is still no agreement on the timing series of sedimentary basins and 30 consecutive gorges within its main of the integration of the YR, with estimates ranging from > 34 Ma to course. Previous studies suggested that the YR achieved its present ~0.15 Ma (Zhu, 1989; Lin et al., 2001; Zhang et al., 2004; Pan et al., geometry by integrating a series of ancestral local drainages in the 2005, 2011; Zheng et al., 2007; Li et al., 2017; Liu, 2017; Guo et al., Chinese Loess Plateau and northeastern Tibetan Plateau (Zhu, 1989; Li 2018; Shang et al., 2018). Lin et al. (2001) have proposed that a proto- et al., 1996; Pan et al., 2012; Craddock et al., 2010). Understanding the YR existed in the Eocene as an eastward-draining river running through integration timing of the YR is crucial as it has been linked to the uplift the course of the Weihe River directly to the Sanmen Gorge, and later ⁎ Correspondence to: G. Xiao, State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, School of Earth Sciences, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China. ⁎⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (G. Xiao), [email protected] (J. Yang). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2020.109691 Received 20 December 2019; Received in revised form 27 February 2020; Accepted 28 February 2020 Available online 05 March 2020 0031-0182/ © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. G. Xiao, et al. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 546 (2020) 109691 Fig. 1. Geotectonic setting and location of the Yellow River course. (a) Simplified geotectonic map of the drainage area of the Yellow River showing the principal source regions (modified after Yang et al., 2009 and Weislogel et al., 2010). The North China Craton (NCC) consists of the Eastern North China Craton (ENCC), the Trans-North China Orogen (TNCO), and the Western North China Craton (WNCC). OB—Ordos Block; CAOB—Central Asian Orogenic Belt; JB—Junggar Basin; TB—Tarim Block; QB—Qiangtang Block; Q&Q—Qilian and Qaidam; YC—Yangtze Craton; S-G—Songpan-Ganzi; Q-D—Qinling-Dabie. (b) Map of the Yellow River course (revised from Nie et al., 2015) and location of the studied boreholes (red squares). The Upper (U), Middle (M), and Lower (L) Reaches of the Yellow River are divided by black bold lines. The black dashed line denotes the modern watershed boundary. The green dots and numbers show the sites of published detrital-zircon samples cited in the Fig. 4(j) and (k) (see Table 1 for sample information), and the red triangles denote the previously studied sites and their estimates of the Yellow River age (see the text for details). (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.) developed a 1500-km-long loop around the Ordos Block in late Mio- major dust supply for these loess deposits at least since 0.9 Ma (Shang cene–early Pliocene. However, dating of the uppermost fluvial terraces et al., 2018). A second line of evidence is from the sedimentary record lying along the Upper and Middle Reaches has yielded much younger of the Sanmen paleolake, a Cenozoic mega lake situated in the Fenwei and dissimilar ages for the integration of the YR (e.g., ~3.6 Ma or Graben to the west of the Sanmen Gorge (Fig. 1). The occurrence of 1.7 Ma at Linxia (Li et al., 1997; Nie et al., 2015) and Lanzhou (Li et al., some non-marine foraminiferal fauna and brackish ostracods in the 1996; Guo et al., 2018), 1.4–1.6 Ma in the Chinese Loess Plateau (Zhu, upper Neogene and lower Pleistocene deposits (Wang et al., 1982) in- 1989), ~8 Ma (Liu, 2017) or 3.7–1.2 Ma (Cheng et al., 2002; Pan et al., dicate that the Sanmen paleolake was once an endorheic basin. In- 2011; Hu et al., 2016) in the Jinshaan Gorge, Fig. 1). In addition, vestigations demonstrated that lacustrine deposition in the Sanmen Craddock et al. (2010) suggested that the development of the upper- paleolake terminated between 1.2 and 1.8 Ma and was followed by most reaches of the YR in northeastern Tibet did not occur earlier than loess deposition (Yue, 1996; Han et al., 1997; Wang et al., 2002a; Li 0.5 Ma. et al., 2004; Kong et al., 2014). The disappearance of the Sanmen pa- Exploring the timing of the YR integration requires age control on leolake is most likely related to incision of the Sanmen Gorge. However, the connection of the Upper and Middle Reaches to the Lower Reaches, others proposed that the termination of lacustrine deposition in the which was formerly blocked by the ~100 km-wide Xiaoshan Mountain Sanmen paleolake occurred later, at ~0.15 Ma (Wang et al., 2002b; uplift block (belongs to the southern part of the Taihang Mountains). Jiang et al., 2007). A third line of evidence for the incision of the The development of the Sanmen Gorge cut through Xiaoshan Mountain Sanmen Gorge is based on the ages of the regional planation surface and and connected the Upper and Middle Reaches to the Lower Reaches of the uppermost terrace along the gorge, which suggested the incision of YR (Fig. 1). Therefore, the incision timing of the Sanmen Gorge is the Sanmen Gorge occurred between 3.6 and 1.2 Ma (Pan et al., 2005; crucial to constraining the integration of the whole YR. However, its Kong et al., 2014; Hu et al., 2017). A fourth line of evidence is based on timing is still under debate. provenance studies from sedimentary cores in the Lower YR, which Four lines of evidence have been proposed as proxies for de- have suggested that the incision of the Sanmen Gorge occurred at least termining the excavation age of the Sanmen Gorge. First, some have ~0.8 Ma based on changes in lanthanum to samarium (La/Sm) ratios, proposed that incision occurred at ~0.24 or 0.15 Ma based on changes SreNd isotopic compositions, and clay mineral assemblages (Yao et al., in sedimentation rates, magnetic susceptibility values and grain-size in 2017; Zhang et al., 2019), as these signals probably reflected the input the loess deposits of Mangshan near the outlet of the gorge (Jiang et al., of large amount of loess materials from the Chinese Loess Plateau.

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