A 6000-year high-resolution climatic record from a stalagmite in Xiangshui Cave, Guilin, China

Middle- to late-Holocene palaeoclimate change has been reconstructed at high resolution by the analysis of the carbon and oxygen isotopes from a thermal ionization mass spectrometric (TIMS) U/Th dated stalagmite from Xiangshui Cave, near Guilin, Guangxi Province, China. The carbon and oxygen isotopic records from the stalagmite suggest that changes in the Asian monsoon since the middle Holocene (6000 BP) can be divided into two periods: (1) an interval from 6000 to 3800 BP when a strong East Asian summer monsoon gradually weakened and climate was relatively warm and humid; (2) a cool period from 3800 to 373 BP when the East Asian summer monsoon was relatively weak and the winter monsoon was probably relatively strong. This cooler interval was interspersed with a number of short warm periods. This interpretation is largely based upon the general increase in δ¹⁸O values of the stalagmite between 6000 and 3800 BP and shifts in δ¹⁸O about a relatively heavy mean value between 3800 and 373 BP. The 6000 to 3800 BP trend is probably associated with decrease in precipitation and temperature subsequent to the mid-Holocene climatic optimum.