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Science 23 April 2004:
Vol. 304. no. 5670, pp. 575 - 578
DOI: 10.1126/science.1091220
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Reports

Timing, Duration, and Transitions of the Last Interglacial Asian Monsoon

Daoxian Yuan,1 Hai Cheng,2 R. Lawrence Edwards,2* Carolyn A. Dykoski,2 Megan J. Kelly,2 Meiliang Zhang,1 Jiaming Qing,1 Yushi Lin,1 Yongjin Wang,3 Jiangyin Wu,3 Jeffery A. Dorale,4 Zhisheng An,5 Yanjun Cai5

Thorium-230 ages and oxygen isotope ratios of stalagmites from Dongge Cave, China, characterize the Asian Monsoon and low-latitude precipitation over the past 160,000 years. Numerous abrupt changes in 18O/16O values result from changes in tropical and subtropical precipitation driven by insolation and millennial-scale circulation shifts. The Last Interglacial Monsoon lasted 9.7 ± 1.1 thousand years, beginning with an abrupt (less than 200 years) drop in 18O/16O values 129.3 ± 0.9 thousand years ago and ending with an abrupt (less than 300 years) rise in 18O/16O values 119.6 ± 0.6 thousand years ago. The start coincides with insolation rise and measures of full interglacial conditions, indicating that insolation triggered the final rise to full interglacial conditions.

1 Karst Dynamics Laboratory, Ministry of Land and Resources, 40 Qixing Road, Guilin 541004, China.
2 Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, MN 55455, USA.
3 College of Geography Science, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210097, China.
4 Department of Geoscience, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 52242, USA.
5 State Key Lab of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi'an 710075, China.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: edwar001{at}umn.edu

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