Orbital and suborbital climate cycles recorded in terrestrial strata from the late Paleocene-early Eocene in the Subei Basin, East China

Interannual-to millennial-scale climate cycles have been recognized in ancient sedimentary strata and may be closely associated with solar activity. However, the physical driving mechanisms of such cycles remain a mystery. To better understand the nature and evolution of suborbital cycles in ice-free conditions, we performed a quantitative analysis of high-resolution phosphorus (P), gray-scale values, and iron (Fe) data obtained from a core deposited in a mid-latitude lake (Funing Formation of the Subei Basin) during the Late Paleocene-Early Eocene. Time series analysis reveals evidence for ∼88-yr and ∼ 11-yr solar activity cycles in the gray value data, and ∼ 20-kyr precession cycles, ∼10-kyr half-precession cycles, and ∼ 2-kyr solar activity cycles in the Fe data. The data indicate that paleoclimate changes in the Subei Basin at this time were driven by both orbital and suborbital cycles. Amplitude modulation analysis suggests that ∼20-kyr precession modulated the amplitude of the observed 2-kyr cycles. It is inferred that the Earth's climate is driven not only by eccentricity-modulated precession cycle, but also by precession-modulated millennial cycles.