A magnetostratigraphic record of landscape development in the eastern Ordos Plateau, China: Transition from Late Miocene and Early Pliocene stacked sedimentation to Late Pliocene and Quaternary uplift and incision by the Yellow River

A continuous fluviolacustrine record provides the geochronological framework to reconstruct the fluvial landscape evolution of the middle reach of the Huanghe (Yellow River). Magnetostratigraphic records from six sections at the north of the Jinshaan Gorge indicate that an isolated fluviolacustrine system occupied this gorge from 8.3 to 3.7 Ma. Local fluvial incision initiated at the lake margin around 5.3-4.9 Ma, and concomitant fluvial deposits intruded laterally into fine lacustrine strata increasing the sedimentation rate (ca. 3.1 cm/ky) within the isolated lake. The temporal coincidence of the onset of uplift-driven valley incision at 3.7 Ma along the Yellow River and the onset of basin excavation suggest that uplift possibly played an important role in the late Pliocene-Quaternary drainage evolution. Consequently, incision of the Yellow River upstream in the Jinshaan Gorge initiated at 3.7 Ma.