Short communication: Massive erosion in monsoonal central India linked to late Holocene land cover degradation
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Date
2017
Publication Type
Journal Article
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Abstract
Soil erosion plays a crucial role in transferring sediment and carbon from land to sea, yet little is known about the rhythm and rates of soil erosion prior to the most recent few centuries. Here we reconstruct a Holocene erosional history from central India, as integrated by the Godavari River in a sediment core from the Bay of Bengal. We quantify terrigenous fluxes, fingerprint sources for the lithogenic fraction and assess the age of the exported terrigenous carbon. Taken together, our data show that the monsoon decline in the late Holocene significantly increased soil erosion and the age of exported organic carbon. This acceleration of natural erosion was later exacerbated by the Neolithic adoption and Iron Age extensification of agriculture on the Deccan Plateau. Despite a constantly elevated sea level since the middle Holocene, this erosion acceleration led to a rapid growth of the continental margin. We conclude that in monsoon conditions aridity boosts rather than suppresses sediment and carbon export, acting as a monsoon erosional pump modulated by land cover conditions.
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published
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Journal / series
Volume
5 (4)
Pages / Article No.
781 - 789
Publisher
Copernicus
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Organisational unit
08619 - Labor für Ionenstrahlphysik (LIP) / Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics (LIP)
03868 - Eglinton, Timothy I. (emeritus) / Eglinton, Timothy I. (emeritus)
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Funding
140850 - Climate and Anthropogenic PerturbationS of Land-Ocean Carbon tracKs (CAPS-LOCK) (SNF)
163162 - Climate and Anthropogenic PerturbationS of Land-Ocean Carbon tracKs (CAPS-LOCK2) (SNF)
163162 - Climate and Anthropogenic PerturbationS of Land-Ocean Carbon tracKs (CAPS-LOCK2) (SNF)