Ren, Xueping , Xing, Li , Guo, Benhong , Yang, Xueqin , Tong, Fengtai , Xiao, Yilin , Nie, Junsheng
2025-11-01 GLOBAL AND PLANETARY CHANGE 2025 254(卷), null(期), (null页)
The Li isotope composition (S7Li) of terrestrial sediments is a promising tracer for extracting past chemical weathering and environmental changes, but the relative importance of precipitation versus temperature effects on S7Li remains poorly constrained. Here, we present bulk and clay-sized fraction S7Li data for a Red Clay sequence from the Chaona section on the central Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP), and compare the results with magnetic parameter-based temperature and precipitation records. We find that, from the late Miocene onwards, the clay-sized fraction S7Li record corresponds well with magnetic precipitation proxy records but not with temperature proxy records. This pattern suggests that changes in precipitation exert a primary control on clay-sized fraction S7Li variations. Bulk S7Li in the Chaona section shows an approximately similar decreasing trend to that of clay-sized fraction S7Li from the late Miocene to mid-Pliocene, consistent with precipitation records. In contrast, bulk S7Li variations display an inverse trend compared with clay-sized fraction S7Li and precipitation records during the late Pliocene, which we attribute to intensified winter monsoon and provenance shifts. Our findings demonstrate that clay-sized fraction S7Li in sediments can serve as a reliable indicator to reconstruct past precipitation changes on the CLP on million year timescales.