Stepwise Tarim Sea Retreat(West China):Eustatic VS.Tectonic Control and Links with Asian Aridification

Climate modeling studies suggest the retreat of the shallow epicontinental sea that extended across Eurasia from the Mediterranean Tethys to the Tarim Basin may have been as important as the Tibetan Plateau uplift in forcing Asian aridification and monsoons due to the redistribution of the land-sea thermal contrast(e.g.Ramstein et al.,1997;Zhang et al.,2012).However,testing of this hypothesis is hindered by poor constraints on the timing and paleogeography of this sea retreat.Our previous litho-and biostratigraphic analyses of marinecontinental Paleogene successions of the southwest Tarim Basin along the West Kunlun Shan in western China showed that they formed the easternmost margin of this shallow marine epicontinental sea extending across Eurasia,which was well-connected to the western Tethys(Bosboom et al.,2011).Here we present an improved and precisely dated integrated bio-and magnetostratigraphic framework of these successions,allowing us to better constrain cause and impact of this sea retreat.The mari...Climate modeling studies suggest the retreat of the shallow epicontinental sea that extended across Eurasia from the Mediterranean Tethys to the Tarim Basin may have been as important as the Tibetan Plateau uplift in forcing Asian aridification and monsoons due to the redistribution of the land-sea thermal contrast(e.g.Ramstein et al.,1997;Zhang et al.,2012).However,testing of this hypothesis is hindered by poor constraints on the timing and paleogeography of this sea retreat.Our previous litho-and biostra中国地质学会、美国地质学会2Vol.8