Mechanisms underlying the final integration of the Yellow River have been broadly criticized 9, 11, 12, including climate-driven expansion of lake systems 9, flooding events 11 and/or adjustment of river drainage due to tectonic-forcing 12. 11 reported the final integration of the Yellow River with the marginal sea at ~150 ka and ~1.3–1.4 Ma, respectively 10, 11. 9 suggested that the appearance of the Yellow River and headward basin integration had occurred during the period between ~1.8 and ~0.5 Myr 9. Results from the integrated geological study suggested that the Yellow River drained eastward directly to the ocean in the Eocene 12. However, the drainage history of the Yellow River, especially when it began to influence the Chinese marginal seas, is highly controversial, with estimates ranging from the Eocene to the late Pleistocene 9, 10, 11, 12. Large river-marginal sea interaction is thus important for understanding the linkages between the tectonic-induced denudation and Earth’s climate 7, 8. This world’s top turbid river discharges over 1.0 billion tons of sediments to the marginal seas annually 6 and therefore, it offers a critical linkage between the continental erosion and subsequent sediment accumulation in the western Pacific marginal sea. The Yellow River originates from the Tibetan Plateau in northwestern China, charring extremely high silty sediments. The interactions of such large river systems with marginal seas largely regulate biogeochemical cycles 2, 3, primary productivity 4 and marine sedimentary formation 5 in the continental shelves. To our knowledge, this study provides the first offshore evidence on the drainage history of the Yellow River within an accurate chronology framework.Įarth’s geomorphological features, especially surface drainage patterns, are sculpted by large river systems 1, such as the Amazon, Ganges-Brahmaputra, Yangtze and Yellow Rivers over tectonic-millennial timescales. We compare the age of this provenance shift with the available age data for Yellow River headwater integration into the marginal seas and suggest that the persistent influence of the Yellow River on the Chinese marginal seas must have occurred at least ~880 ka ago. Our results show a climate-driven provenance shift from small, proximal mountain rivers-dominance to the Yellow River-dominance at ~880 ka, a time period consistent with the Mid-Pleistocene orbital shift from 41-kyr to 100-kyr cyclicity. Here we present high-resolution records of clay minerals and lanthanum to samarium (La/Sm) ratio spanning the past ~1 million years (Myr) from the Bohai and Yellow Seas, the potential sedimentary sinks of the Yellow River. However, the exact age of its influence on the marginal sea is highly controversial and uncertain. The Yellow River (or Huanghe and also known as China’s Sorrow in ancient times), with the highest sediment load in the world, provides a key link between continental erosion and sediment accumulation in the western Pacific Ocean.
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