Description: During the Holocene, the most notably climatic change across the African continent is the African Humid Period (AHP), however the pace and primary forcing for this pluvial condition is still ambiguous, particularly in East Africa. We present a high-resolution marine sediment record off Tanzania to provide insights into the climatic conditions of inland East Africa during the Holocene. Major element ratios (i.e., log-ratios of Fe/Ca and Ti/Ca), derived from X-Ray Fluorescence scanning, have been employed to document variations in humidity in East Africa. Our results show that the AHP is represented by two humid phases: an intense humid period from the beginning of the Holocene to 8 ka (AHP I); and a moderate humid period spanning from 8 to 5.5 ka (AHP II). On the basis of our geochemical record and regime detection, the termination of the AHP initiated at 5.5 ka and ceased around 3.5 ka. Combined with other paleoclimatic records around East Africa, we suggest that the humid conditions in this region responded to Northern Hemisphere (NH) summer insolation. The AHP I and II might have been related to an eastward shift of the Congo Air Boundary and warmer conditions in the western Indian Ocean, which resulted in additional moisture being delivered from the Atlantic and Indian Oceans during the NH summer and autumn, respectively. We further note a drought event throughout East Africa north of 10°S around 8.2 ka, which may have been related to the southward migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone in response to the NH cooling event.

Description: The Late Pliocene is thought to be characterized by the simultaneous intensification of both the East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM) and East Asian summer monsoon (EASM). However, the evolution of the EASM during the Pliocene remains still controversial and only little is known about the dynamics of the EASM during the Pliocene on orbital time scales. Here we use clay mineral assemblages in sediments from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Site 1143 in the southern South China Sea (SCS) to obtain proxy records of past changes in the EASM climate during the Pliocene. Provenance analysis suggests that illite, chlorite and kaolinite originated mainly from the Mekong River drainage area. Smectite was derived mainly from the Indonesian islands. The kaolinite/illite ratio and the chemical index of alteration (CIA) of siliciclastic sediments allowed us to reconstruct the history of chemical weathering and physical erosion of the Mekong River drainage area and thus, the evolution of the EASM during the Pliocene. Our clay minerals proxy data suggests a stronger EASM during the Early Pliocene than during the Late Pliocene. We propose that the long-term evolution of the EASM has been driven by global cooling rather than the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau. Spectral analysis of kaolinite/illite ratio displays a set of strong periodicities at 100 ka, 30 ka, 28 ka, 25 ka, and 22 ka, with no clear obliquity-related signal. Our study suggests that the Pliocene EASM intensity on orbital time scales is not only controlled by the Northern Hemisphere summer insolation, but also strongly influenced by equatorial Pacific ENSO-like ocean-atmosphere dynamics.