Dust records from varved lacustrine sediments of two neighboring lakes in northeastern China over the last 1400 years

Dust storms are natural phenomena, described in Chinese historical documents as early as 1150 BC. These documents provide a way to evaluate proxy data from different natural records. The minerogenic clastic content and grain size from two closed maar lakes located a short distance apart in northeastern China were analyzed. The area is located in the path of dust storms. The minerogenic clastics in the studied maar lakes originate mainly from dust deposition. General variations of the minerogenic clastic content in these two neighboring lakes show a good coincidence with dust concentration in a Tibet ice core and dust events as recorded in historical documents. The minerogenic clastic content in the lake sediments is linked with the climate conditions in the dust source regions and wind strength. Three periods of intensive dust events (AD 1050–1330, AD 1590–1690, and the last 200 years) have been identified during the past 1500 years. The recent increasing pattern of clastic content could be linked to human activity in the dust source regions. Significantly, most of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was marked by a high frequency of dust storms.