JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE (2012) 27(2) 125–128 ISSN 0267-8179. DOI: 10.1002/jqs.

1568

Rapid Communication

Late Holocene Asian monsoon variations recorded in

Lake Rara sediment, western Nepal
ATSUNORI NAKAMURA,1,2 YUSUKE YOKOYAMA,1,2,3,* HIDEAKI MAEMOKU,4 HIROSHI YAGI,5 MAKOTO OKAMURA,6
HIROMI MATSUOKA,6 NAO MIYAKE,6 TOSHIKI OSADA,7 HIROFUMI TERAMURA,7 DANDA PANI ADHIKARI,8
VISHNU DANGOL,8 YOSUKE MIYAIRI,1 STEPHEN OBROCHTA1 and HIROYUKI MATSUZAKI9
1
Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo, 5-1-5 Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8564, Japan
2
Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Japan
3
Institute of Biogeoscience, Japan Agency of Marine Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Kanagawa, Japan
4
Program in Science, Technology and Social Studies Education, Graduate School of Education, Hiroshima University, Japan
5
Department of Information, Environmental and Food Sciences, Faculty of Education, Art and Science, Yamagata University, Japan
6
Research and Education Faculty, Natural Sciences Cluster, Sciences Unit, Kochi University, 2-5-1 Akebono-cho, Kochi-shi,
Kochi 780-8520, Japan
7
Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, National Institutes for the Humanities, Inter-University Research Institute Corporation,
Kyoto, Japan
8
Department of Geology, Tri-Chandra Campus, Tribhuvan University, Ghantaghar, Kathmandu, Nepal
9
Department of Nuclear Engineering and Management, School of Engineering, University of Tokyo, Japan
Received 8 July 2011; Revised 26 November 2011; Accepted 10 December 2011

ABSTRACT: The Himalayas are a key location for understanding centennial- to millennial-scale variations in the
Asian monsoon, yet few studies of the late Holocene have been conducted in this sensitive area. Direct evidence for
shifts in monsoonal wind strength is often limited to marine proxy records, while terrestrial reconstructions (e.g. lake
levels and spleothems) focus on precipitation. Here, we present the first evidence of terrestrial summer monsoon wind
strength changes from Lake Rara, western Nepal, based on Mn/Ti ratios, a proxy for lake stratification. These data
indicate a link between the Arabian Sea and the Himalayas, suggesting that centennial- to millennial-scale changes in
wind strength occurred synchronously. Distinct similarity is also observed between Lake Rara and the southern part of
China, which may support previous suggestions that the southern part of China is influenced by Indian summer
monsoon. Copyright # 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

KEYWORDS: monsoon; Holocene; Lake Rara; Himalayas; speleothem.

Introduction (2003) reconstructed monsoonal wind variability using the

The Asian monsoon is the seasonal reversal of wind direction
caused by a temperature gradient between the continent and
the ocean. In summer, high surface temperatures over the large
Asian land mass cause low atmospheric pressure and intense
convection. The rising air is replaced by moist air moving from
the ocean, resulting in heavy rainfall. Although geological
reconstructions indicate that Asian summer monsoon intensity
gradually decreased through the Holocene (Wang et al., 2005;
Fleitmann et al., 2007; Cai et al., 2010; Dong et al., 2010;
Yokoyama et al., 2011), a clear and coherent picture of
millennial- and centennial-scale variability has yet to emerge
(e.g. Overpeck and Cole, 2007). The overall trend in intensity is
explained by, and is consistent with, an orbitally induced
decrease in summer solar insolation. However, explaining
variations at suborbital scales is more difficult, due in part to the
lack of an a priori reason for such high-frequency variability,
and in part due to the scarcity of empirical evidence provided
by direct terrestrial reconstructions of wind strength (Yokoyama
et al., 2006).
Terrestrial reconstructions typically target precipitation,
while marine reconstructions provide information on wind
strength. However, it is unclear if changes in wind strength
result in correlative changes in precipitation (e.g. Prasad and
Enzel, 2006). In the Arabian Sea, for example, Gupta et al.
1
*Correspondence: Y. Yokoyama, Atmosphere and Ocean Research Institute,
as above.
E-mail: Yokoyama@aori.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Copyright ß 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
abundance of the planktic foraminifera Globigerina bulloides
as a proxy for upwelling strength, which is in turn related to
wind-driven coastal divergence, i.e. wind strength. Further-
more, monsoonal wind variations were linked to fluctuations
in North Atlantic drift ice (Bond et al., 2001), indicating
synchroneity between high- and low-latitude, centennial-scale
changes in wind regimes (Gupta et al., 2005; Yokoyama and
Esat, 2011).
However, speleothem records indicate that suborbital
monsoonal precipitation changes were asynchronous across
East Asia (Kubota et al., 2010). In addition, the Arabian Sea
record is probably affected by changes in other parameters,
such as nutrient level, and therefore may not be solely
recording changes in wind strength. Therefore, a terrestrial
reconstruction of monsoonal wind variability during the late
Holocene is required to corroborate marine reconstructions.
Here we present an average 70-year resolved record of
changing stratification in a high-altitude Himalayan lake,
which is directly related to wind strength variability and at a
relatively more proximal location to the high-resolution
speleothem records of East Asia.
Regional setting
Sediments used in this study were recovered from Lake Rara
(298320 N, 828050 E), which is well suited to reconstruct past
monsoon variability. It is situated on the southern slope of the
Lesser Himalayas in western Nepal at an altitude of 3000 m
126 JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE
above sea level and surrounded by ridges primarily composed
of quartzite interbedded with phyllite (Fig. 1). Approximately
80% of the average 1100 mm mean annual precipitation occurs
during the summer monsoon, between June and September,
with a peak in August of
310 mm (based on monthly
precipitation data at 298250 N, 828250 E from 1991 to 2000)
(Beck et al., 2005). It has only one outlet that flows down to join
the River Karnali, a tributary river of the Ganges (Yasuda and
Tabata, 1988). Lake Rara has an area of 9.8 km2 (Okino and
Sato, 1986), a maximum water depth of 168 m, and catchment
area of only ca. 30 km2. Due to such a small catchment size, the
contribution of sediment from surrounding areas should be
minimized, allowing a detailed examination of changes in
redox conditions, which reflect lake stratification, the prevail-
ing climate in general and wind strength in particular.
Materials and methods
Core RARA09-1, 267.5 cm in length, was recovered in
September 2009 from Lake Rara at 165 m water depth using
a raft-mounted piston corer. The sediments are mainly
composed of olive grey silt. Elemental analysis was performed
with a RIGAKU 3270 X-ray fluorescence spectrometer on
discreet samples with average temporal resolution of 70 years.
Analytical procedures are described in Machida and Ishii
(2003).
Radiocarbon dating was performed on eight leaves, three
wood fragments and 21 bulk organic matter samples. Leaves
and wood fragments were kept in plastic bags in the dark place
at 48C until acid–alkali–acid treatment. Bulk organic matter
samples were collected using 7-mL plastic cubes and pretreated
in 1 M HCl for 2 h to remove carbonate. Samples were
recovered as CO2 by heating with CuO in a sealed tube,
and the gas converted to graphite using H2 as a reducing agent
and Fe as a catalyst (Yokoyama et al., 2007). The graphite was
analysed by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) at the
University of Tokyo. The 14C dates were calibrated to calendar
years using the calibration software Oxcal v3.10 (Bronk
Ramsey, 2001) with the Intcal04 dataset (Reimer et al., 2004).
Sedimentary profiles of Mn are commonly used as an
indicator of changing redox conditions in lake water (e.g.
Katsuta et al., 2006, 2007; Yancheva et al., 2007). Manganese
exists primarily as a reduced species (Mn2þ) within the anoxic
hypolimnetic water during lake stratification. Wind mixing
enables oxygenated surface water to penetrate the hypolim-
nion, resulting in precipitation of the oxidized species MnO2,
which rains out and accumulates in the sediments (Schaller
et al., 1997). This is supported by an inverse relationship
between direct measurements of wind speed and dissolved
Mn2þ in water from Lake Taihu, China (Zhang et al., 2006).
40˚ 60˚ 80˚ 100˚ 120˚
40˚
ITCZ Lake Rara Dongge Cave
20˚
Hole 723A
ON
NSO
N MO
SIA
TA
EAS
INDIAN MONSOON
0˚
40˚ 60˚ 80˚ 100˚ 120˚
Figure 1. Location of Lake Rara and Dongge Cave. Bold arrows
represent surface wind direction in summer. Dashed line marks the
northern limit of the Intertropical Convergence Zone.
Copyright ß 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
In many settings, lake overturning ceases in summer as a result
of stratification due to stronger surface heating, and anoxic
reducing conditions return, resulting in Mn dissolution
(Aoyama, 1993; Davison, 1993; Toyoda & Shinozuka,
2004). However, several lines of evidence indicate that the
setting of Lake Rara is appropriate to greatly reduce diagenetic
effects.
Good preservation of the primary Mn signal in the sediments
is probably due to wind-driven turbulence and resultant
oxygenation during the summer monsoon (e.g. Kok, 1978).
Previous observations indicate that the water column of Lake
Rara in summer is well oxygenated from surface to bottom. On
20 May 1983, dissolved oxygen at the surface and bottom of the
lake was 7.50 and 4.84 mg L1, respectively, indicating
dissolved oxygen was 58% saturated even just above the
sediment (Okino and Satoh, 1986). If post-depositional
dissolution of Mn were occurring on a significant scale, a
decreasing downcore trend in Mn concentration would be
expected. Neither this nor the products of microbial reduction
(e.g. pyrite) are observed. Thus, manganese content of Lake
Rara sediment is interpreted to be most sensitive to summer
monsoon wind strength (Supporting Information, Fig. S1).
Finally, to account for potential variations in the lithogenically
derived fraction, which should be minimal due to the relatively
small catchment size, Mn content is normalized to Ti (derived
from TiO2). The resulting Mn/Ti ratios should provide a reliable
record of changing redox conditions that are directly related to
changes in monsoonal wind strength (see Supporting infor-
mation, Figs S2 and S3). This is supported by a modelling study
indicating that deep mixing in excess of the maximum water
depth of Lake Rara is achieved with a wind velocity of only
10 m s1 (Botte and Kay, 2002).
[To estimate the source and controlling factor of concen-
tration of major elements, scatter plots of major elements
versus TiO2 are shown in Fig. S2. Good correlations are
found between SiO2 and TiO2 (R ¼ 0.74), CaO and
TiO2 (R ¼ 0.84), Al2O3 and TiO2 (R ¼ 0.91), MgO and
TiO2 (R ¼ 0.55), Na2O and TiO2 (R ¼ 0.79), and K2O
and TiO2 (R ¼ 0.69). No correlation was found between
MnO and TiO2 (R ¼ 0.066), Fe2O3 and TiO2 (R ¼ 0.070),
or P2O5 and TiO2 (R ¼ 0.20). A close correlation with
TiO2 indicates a lithogenic crustal origin. Elements with no
significant correlation to TiO2 (Mn, Fe and P) are interpreted to
be have been deposited through precipitation in the water
column due to changing redox conditions. This strongly
suggests that Mn is a useful proxy to reconstruct bottom water
redox condition affected by wind intensity. Temporal variations
of MnO, Fe2O3 and P2O5 show a similar pattern of variability
(Fig. S3). Here, we focus on MnO because it has the largest total
variance thorough time.]
Results and discussion
40˚
The age–depth relationship for core RARA09-1 is depicted in
Fig. 2. Leaf samples indicate a clear linear relationship with a
modern coretop at nearly 0 cal a BP. Bulk organic matter
samples are, however, typically 500 years older than the leaf
samples, and exhibit non-systematic variations with depth.
20˚
Similar issues have arisen in other studies using bulk organic
matter (e.g. Wang et al., 2002; Wu et al., 2006). This is probably
due to mixing of modern lake organic matter with relict
terrestrial materials. This implies that using 14C ages of bulk
0˚
organic matter overestimates the age of the sediment. Wood
fragments average approximately 200 years older than the leaf
samples, placing their ages between those of leaves and bulk
organic matter. The bias towards older ages in the wood
fragments might be due to the time between cessation of
J. Quaternary Sci., Vol. 27(2) 125–128 (2012)
 LATE HOLOCENE MONSOON VARIATIONS, NEPAL
Lithology Age (cal a BP)
bulk organic matter
wood fragment
leaf
Depth in core (cm)
light olive gray silt sand
lighter
gravel
darker
olive gray silt
Figure 2. 14C dates with 1s errors plotted against depth in core
RARA09-1. The solid line is the age model for core RARA09-1 based
on linear interpolation of eight leaf samples, assuming turbidite layers
represent geologically instantaneous sediment accumulation. This
figure is available in colour online at wileyonlinelibrary.com.
atmospheric carbon uptake and deposition in the lake floor.
Therefore, the age model for core RARA09-1 in this study is
exclusively based on radiocarbon dates using only leaves,
resulting in an average sedimentation rate of 0.5 mm a1 and a
maximum age of 4500 years.
Downcore profiles of Mn/Ti may vary in response to changes
in either MnO or TiO2 (Fig. 3c). At Lake Rara, 98% of the
variability in the Mn/Ti is ratio explained by variability in the
amount of sedimentary MnO, indicating large changes in deep
oxygenation, as opposed to variations in weathering and
erosion of the catchment area. MnO exhibits over an order of
magnitude higher variability than TiO2.
Several intervals of weak Indian summer monsoon wind
strength are detected at 0.7, 1.1, 1.5, 2.7, 3.3 and 4.3 cal ka BP
from profiles of Mn/Ti. These weaker wind intensity periods
correspond well with previously reported timings. The latter
four events are seen throughout all of Asia. The timing of weak
monsoonal wind events recorded in the Arabian Sea (Gupta
et al., 2003; Fig. 3b), along the same wind pathway as Lake Rara
(Fig. 1), are also similar. This suggests that centennial- to
millennial-scale changes in the strength of wind occurred
synchronously between the Arabian Sea and the Himalayas. In
addition, these four weak wind events are also noted in the East
Asian summer monsoon U/Th-dated speleothem record from
Dongge Cave, southern China (Wang et al., 2005; Fig. 3a).
Thus, not only do wind variations in the Arabian Sea
correspond to the Himalayas at millennial to centennial scales,
but so do precipitation events in East Asia. This corroborates the
upwelling-based marine record of wind variations and supports
previous suggestions that the southern part of China is strongly
influenced by Indian summer monsoon (Maher, 2008; Dong
et al., 2010). The Dongge Cave record appears to show other
events that are not readily apparent at Lake Rara. This may be
due to the locality of Lake Rara and/or threshold effects with
respect to reaction of Mn. The latter mechanism could
reasonably explain differences in the long-term trajectory of
the Lake Rara curve compared with the other two records. The
Copyright ß 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
127
a Dongge cave
δ18O (‰）
b Arabian sea
G.bulloides (%)
c Lake Rara
Mn/Ti
Mn/Ti
MnO (wt%)
MnO (wt%)
TiO2 (wt%)
TiO2 (wt%)
Age (cal a BP)
Figure 3. Comparison of (a) the stalagmite d18O record from Dongge
Cave, southern China (Wang et al., 2005), and (b) Globigerina bulloides
occurrence in ODP Hole 723A from the Arabian Sea (Gupta et al.,
2003) with (c) ratio of Mn/Ti and the concentrations of MnO and TiO2
from Lake Rara (this study). Mn/Ti and MnO: r2 ¼ 0.98. Eight accelerator
mass spectrometry 14C dates of leaves are shown with 1s uncertainty.
The vertical grey bars indicate intervals of weak Indian summer
monsoon wind events inferred from Lake Rara. The thick line smoothed
line in (a) represents removal of the high-frequency component of
variability by first interpolating to the series’ average sampling interval
(4.27 years) and then subtracting the results of a Gaussian highpass filter
(1/200 years) from the raw results. This figure is available in colour
online at wileyonlinelibrary.com.
result obtained here provides a link between marine-based
wind reconstructions and terrestrial precipitation-based mon-
soon reconstructions. The Lake Rara sediment core also
indicates penetration of the Indian Monsoon into southern
China, which may influence the interpretation of Chinese
speleothem climate records.
Conclusion
Lake Rara Mn/Ti data provide the first direct comparison of the
Indian summer monsoon wind intensity between the terrestrial
Himalayan region and the marine Arabian Sea region during
the Late Holocene. Centennial- to millennial-scale variability
in these records are synchronous, with the weak wind intervals
corresponding to drier periods in East Asia. Distinct similarities
between the Lake Rara monsoon record and the Dongge cave
speleothem precipitation record suggest that the influence of
the Indian summer monsoon reaches south-eastern China,
which should be taken into account when interpreting
palaeomonsoon reconstructions.
Supporting information
Additional supporting information can be found in the online
version of this article:
Fig. S1. Schematic sketches of the millennial-scale deposi-
tional mechanism of Mn.
Fig. S2. Scatter plots of major elements versus TiO2.
Fig. S3. Temporal variations of MnO, Fe2O3 and P2O5.
J. Quaternary Sci., Vol. 27(2) 125–128 (2012)
128 JOURNAL OF QUATERNARY SCIENCE
Please note: This supporting information is supplied by the
authors, and may be re-organized for online delivery, but is not
copy-edited or typeset by Wiley-Blackwell. Technical support
issues arising from supporting information (other than missing
files) should be addressed to the authors.
Acknowledgements. We thank S. Machida and S. Haraguchi for
assistance with X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. This study was sup-
ported by research project ‘Environmental Change and the Indus
Civilization’ (project 3-3) managed by the Research Institute for
Humanity and Nature, Japan, JSPS (NEXT programme GR031) and
GCOE programme.
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