Cretaceous coastal mountain building and potential impacts on climate change in East Asia

Abstract

Crustal thickness and elevation variations control mountain building and climate change at convergent margins. As an archetypal Andean-type convergent margin, eastern Asia preserves voluminous magmas ideal for quantifying these processes and their impacts on climate. Here, we use Sr/Y and Ce/Y proxies to show that the crust experienced alternating thickening and thinning during the Late Mesozoic. We identify a noticeably thickened (50 to 55 kilometers) crust associated with tectonic shortening at 120 to 105 million years, corresponding to a >2500-meter-high coastal mountain range. Using climate simulation with the Community Earth System Model, we demonstrate that the mountain uplift changed Asian atmospheric circulation and precipitation patterns, increased inland aridity (~15%), and prompted the eastward desert expansion, contributing substantially to the arid zonal belt across mid- to low-latitude Asia. These findings—compatible with independent geological, geophysical, and climatic observations—have global implications for broadening our understanding of Earth-system interactions in the Cretaceous greenhouse world.