PhD projekt:
Neogene vegetation history in north China with a palynological perspective and and its response to the major geological and environmental events
Continuous Neogene terrestrial deposits in northern China have yielded a large body of information regarding the vegetation and climate history, especially the origin and expansion of grassland ecosystem, the evolution of East Asian summer monsoon, and even the uplift of Tibetan Plateau. Due to the coupling relationship between vegetation evolution and climate change, it is scientifically reliable to reconstruct past climate variability and explore its dynamic mechanism using pollen records.The research subjects focus on applying pollen analysis of Neogene terrestrial deposits to reconstruct the terrestrial vegetation history in north China. We have collected several geological samples from Altai (Northern Junggar Basin), Tongxin (Northeast Qinghai-Tibet Plateau) and Xilinhot (Central Part of Inner Mongolia). By means of the statistical analysis of pollen, different climate factors could be identified to distinguish global signals from local signals. It is critical to understand the driving mechanism of the inland arid region of Asia, which is under heated debate on whether global cooling, the environmental effects of uplift events, or the retreat of Tethys Sea. The research aim is to provide a new insight to understand the evolution of grassland ecosystem and the inland arid environment in north China with a palynological perspective.
Keywords: North China, Pollen, Neogene, Vegetation, Inland arid
Wang Jian, the Ph.D. student of University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, is a joint Ph.D. student in Department of Palynology and Climate Dynamics at the University of Göttingen.
PhD supervisor:
Prof. Dr. Li Xiaoqiang (UCAS) and Prof. Dr. Hermann Behling (Göttingen)
Funding: China Scholarship Council (CSC)
Founded since 2019 by the CSC
