Source-to-sink fluctuations of Asian aeolian deposits since the late Oligocene

•Understanding provenance fluctuations of Asian aeolian deposits requires discrimination of the primary and secondary sources.•Integrating different tracers distinguishes three primary and ten secondary sources of Asian aeolian deposits.•Combination of mineral and isotopic tracers can decipher the source-to-sink fluctuations since the late Oligocene.•Tectonic and climatic factors had major impacts on Asian dust cycling at tectonic and glacial-interglacial timescales. The source-to-sink fluctuations of Asian aeolian deposits have been investigated over the past two decades using multiple mineralogical and geochemical tracers. These source tracers have substantially improved our understanding of the processes of production, transport and deposition of Asian dust cycling from the Asian inland basins to the North Pacific Ocean. However, due to differences in the sensitivity and interpretation of these various tracers, there is controversy about which regions were the dominant dust sources and whether the dust provenances were stable at tectonic and glacial-interglacial timescales. Here we comprehensively review the source-to-sink system of Asian aeolian deposits on the Chinese Loess Plateau since the late Oligocene. By assessing the utility of recently employed provenance tracers, we conclude that integrating different tracers can effectively distinguish major primary and secondary dust sources. The combination of Sr-Nd isotopes, quartz ESR-CI-δ18O data, and zircon age spectra can decipher the source-to-sink fluctuations of Asian aeolian deposits at tectonic and glacial-interglacial timescales. Comparison of these sensitive source tracers with tectonic and climatic evidence indicates that the phased growth of the northern Tibetan Plateau played a key role in Asian dust production and transport during the late Oligocene to Miocene, while the onset and expansion of the Northern Hemisphere ice-sheets had a substantial impact on the source-to-sink fluctuations since the late Pliocene.