The East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM) has a profound effect on the winter climate in East Asia. The modern EAWM variability is tightly linked to the high-latitude Northern Hemisphere climate change through the Siberian High and can also be regulated by the low-latitude El Niño-Southern Oscillation through oceanic or atmospheric teleconnections. However, the Quaternary EAWM evolution has long been only attributed to the high-latitude climate change, resulting in the uncertainty in interpreting the out-of-phased EAWM variation recording in the East Asian continent and marginal seas. Here we presented a sediment record at Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Site U1427 in the southern Japan Sea to reconstruct the EAWM evolution since the last glacial maximum. By combining our record with previous reconstructions and simulations, we found the synchronous relationship between winter monsoon in northern and southern regions of East Asia from ∼24 to 8 ka, but anti-correlated relationship since ∼8 ka. We proposed the winter insolation and Atlantic meridional overturning circulation were the main drivers from last glacial to early Holocene, and then ENSO became a dominant factor in controlling the regional heterogeneity of EAWM evolution in the middle and late Holocene. This research explains much of the controversy in the Quaternary EAWM records and highlights the low-high latitude interaction in East Asian winter climate change.

We present a new dataset of zircon U–Pb ages that document igneous activity in the SW Japan arc during middle Miocene time and discuss its relationship with the opening of the Japan Sea, Philippine Sea plate migration, and subduction of the young hot lithosphere of the Shikoku Basin. Precursory magmatism, characterized by dike and stock intrusions, started c. 15.6 Ma in both Kyushu and the Kii Peninsula. Most plutonism occurred between 15.5 and 13.5 Ma in an area 600 km long and 150 km wide. No along-arc trend was recognized in the U–Pb ages of igneous activity near the trench. Our data indicate that all near-trench middle Miocene igneous activity occurred immediately after the opening of the Japan Sea ceased, i.e. after 16 Ma, implying that melt extraction and the emplacement of granites in the near-trench region had some influence on the back-arc opening. Our data also imply that the trench–trench–trench-type triple junction between the Japan arc and the Izu–Bonin–Mariana arc must have reached the east side of the Kii Peninsula by 15.6 Ma. The wide distribution of contemporaneous magmatic activity along the arc requires a trench-parallel heat source, such as the subduction of a trench-parallel ridge or a young and highly segmented ridge–fracture zone system in addition to the hot wedge mantle condition related to the opening of Japan Sea.

A volcano-plutonic complex in the Susa area, southwest Japan, consists of the Yamashima andesites, the Koyama gabbros and syn-plutonic porphyrite dykes derived from a common basaltic andesite magma. The complex is closely associated with middle Miocene turbidite deposits. The Yamashima andesites are composed mainly of basaltic andesite feeder dykes, massive submarine lavas with hyaloclastites, and their reworked deposits. The lavas and deposits immediately overlie turbidite deposits, indicating submarine volcanic activity. The Koyama gabbros formed hornfels by contact metamorphism of the surrounding turbidites and andesites. Highly purified clinopyroxene and plagioclase mineral separates from the Yamashima andesites were dated by a K–Ar method using an ultra-low blank K analysis procedure. Ages obtained from duplicate analyses are 16.5±1.5, 15.2±1.4, 15.8±1.7, and 16.5±2.0 Ma for clinopyroxene, and 14.2±0.8, 15.2±0.9, and 15.6±0.9 Ma for plagioclase. The clinopyroxene and plagioclase data define a mineral isochron age of 14.7±0.9 (1σ) Ma with an initial 40Ar/36Ar ratio of 297.3±2.4 (1σ), suggesting that clinopyroxene has no excess argon and can be reliably dated by K–Ar. Most of the groundmass ages are considerably younger (12.1–14.6) than the isochron age, perhaps due to argon loss during alteration. The gabbros give ages of 14.2±0.3 and 14.1±0.3 Ma for biotite, and 13.7±0.3 and 13.7±0.7 Ma for green hornblende. The porphyrite dyke yields an age of 12.5±0.3 Ma for the groundmass, and the pelitic hornfels gives a biotite age of 14.8±0.3 Ma. Our new K–Ar ages, together with previous studies, show that a series of geological events took place in the Susa area between 16 and 13 Ma. Conglomerates and sandstones were deposited in the beginning of marine transgression. Subsequent abrupt deepening led to deposition of a thick black shale unit, turbidite deposits and large-scale submarine channel-fill deposits. Coeval igneous activity formed the volcano-plutonic complex. The magmato-tectonic event was synchronous with the opening of the Japan Sea and the associated clockwise rotation of the southwest Japan arc sliver, recording a unique tectonic setting.