The lake-level changes of Lop Nur over the past 2000 years and its linkage to the decline of the ancient Loulan Kingdom
Abstract
Study region. Lop Nur, Xinjiang Province, China. Study focus. Lop Nur has been a vast playa which was a historic lake in eastern Tarim Basin, northwest China. The lake's catchment played a significant role in the development of oasis states in the early Common Era, such as the ancient Loulan Kingdom. However, the history of lake dynamics remains unclear, and its potential linkage to the decline of Loulan Kingdom has been not well-examined. This paper aims to reconstruct the lake-level changes in Lop Nur over the last 2000 years using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of lacustrine and aeolian sediments, and radiocarbon (14C) dating of ancient bio-remains. Furthermore, the relationships between Lop Nur' fluctuation and the decline of ancient Loulan Kingdom were discussed. New hydrological insights for the region. The results suggest that Lop Nur once covered an area more than 11, 602 km2 and that lake-level reduced gradually during 360–470 C.E. Subsequently, the lake experienced a few stages of lake-level fluctuation which never reached the upper-most shorelines. Also, the historical changes in the lake level were temporal coincided with the ancient Loulan Kingdom's collapse, showing that the dynamics of hydrological conditions in catchment may have a direct influence on the fall of human settlement in drylands.
Additional Information
© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Under a Creative Commons license (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)) Received 27 July 2021, Revised 13 January 2022, Accepted 15 January 2022, Available online 18 January 2022. We thank Z. Gao, L. Wang, A. Cai, T. Zhang, L. Liu, G. Wang, Z. Wan, K.X, H. Lü, X. Qin, Z. Gu, G. Mu, A. Kurban, Y. Zhao, Z. Jiang and N. Li; BETA laboratory for conducting the 14C analyses. Y. Shao, H. Z. Gong and H. D. Guo interpreted the SAR images and wrote the manuscript, C. Elachi and B. Brisco analyzed the polarimetric data, X. Xia and J. Liu led the field campaigns, S. Kang made the OSL dating, Y. Y. Geng, C. A. Liu, Z. Yang, and T. T. Zhang processed SAR images and samples. This research was supported by the Ministry of Science & Technology [2016YFB0502500, 2007AA12Z168, and 2014FY210500], National Science Foundation of China [42071313, 41431174, U1303285] and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (2018447). CRediT authorship contribution statement. Yun Shao: Writing – original draft. Huaze Gong: Investigation. Charles Elachi: Formal analysis. Brian Brisco: Data curation. Jiaqi Liu: Investigation. Xuncheng Xia: Investigation. Huadong Guo: Writing – original draft. Yuyang Geng: Data curation. Shugang Kang: OSL dating. Chang-an Liu: Data curation. Zhi Yang: Data Curation. Tingting Zhang: Writing – review & editing. The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.Attached Files
Published - 1-s2.0-S2214581822000155-main.pdf
Supplemental Material - 1-s2.0-S2214581822000155-mmc1.docx
Supplemental Material - 1-s2.0-S2214581822000155-mmc2.zip
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 113062
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20220121-968259000
- Ministry of Science and Technology (China)
- 2016YFB0502500
- Ministry of Science and Technology (China)
- 2007AA12Z168
- Ministry of Science and Technology (China)
- 2014FY210500
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- 42071313
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- 41431174
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- U1303285
- Chinese Academy of Sciences
- 2018447
- Created
-
2022-01-24Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2022-01-24Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences