Rock magnetic properties and paleoenvironmental implications of an 8-Ma Late Cenozoic terrigenous succession from the northern Tian Shan foreland basin, northwestern China

In the northern Tian Shan foreland basin, northwestern China, the thick Cenozoic terrigenous succession is crucial for paleoclimate–environmental reconstruction of the Asian interior. Here we present a detailed rock magnetic investigation on 245 samples from the ~1200-m-thick Neogene Taxi He section with a magnetostratigraphic age span of ca. 8.0 to 2.0Ma in the northern Tian Shan foreland basin. Our rock magnetic results indicate that the significant variations in composition, concentration and grain size of magnetic minerals occurred at ca. 6.0, 3.7 and 2.7Ma. The comparable compositions of rare earth elements (REEs) throughout the Neogene Taxi He section suggest no significant modification of the source materials during the interval between ca. 8.0 and 2.0Ma, and thus sediment provenance is not regarded as responsible for these observed variations in rock magnetic properties. Our further analyses show that the variations in magnetic properties of the Taxi He section are casually linked mainly with lithofacies transition due to range encroachment into foreland basin as well as climate aridification. Identified enhancement of aridification was chronologically constrained at ca. 6.0 and 2.7Ma. Such climate events are important archives for reconstructing the Late Cenozoic paleoclimatic history of the Asian interior. Further comparison between different paleoclimate records clearly indicates that magnetic parameters such as S−100mT are potentially effective proxy indices for paleoclimate–environmental reconstruction in the Tian Shan foreland basins and the nearby areas. •We study Late Cenozoic environmental change in the northern Tian Shan foreland.•We present a detailed rock magnetic analysis on the Neogene terrigenous sediments.•We assess the effects of sediment source, lithofacies and mineralogy alternation.•Late Cenozoic stepwise aridification history is inferred from rock magnetic data.