Response of grain-size components of loess-paleosol sequence to Quaternary climate in the Southern Loess Plateau, China
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Response of grain-size components of loess-paleosol sequence to Quaternary climate in the Southern Loess Plateau, China Qiying Zhang 1,2 & Panpan Xu 1,2 & Hui Qian 1,2 & Kai Hou 1,2 Received: 2 September 2019 / Accepted: 12 August 2020 / Published online: 18 August 2020 # Saudi Society for Geosciences 2020
Abstract A new, thick, and complete loess-paleosol sequence is a good response to climate changes. In this paper, the distribution and parameters of grain size in the Xiushidu (XSD) sequence in the southern Loess Plateau were systematically investigated. A comparative analysis of the sediment granularity with different areas was also conducted. The results show that the XSD sequence is primarily constituted by coarse silt (52.18%), clay (21.71%), and fine silt (20.27%), and the contents of colloidal particles (3.63%) and fine sand (2.21%) are relatively small. The contents of 1~5 μm and < 5 μm show a slight increase from S9 to S5, while the contents are clear downward from L5 to L0, indicating that the climate is gradually getting colder after S5. Grain-size distribution curves show a bimodal pattern for loess/paleosol. The grain-size component and peak pattern illustrate that dust materials were not only transported by wind but also experienced pedogenesis. Moreover, the changes of grain-size indicator Mz values indicate climatic instability. Comparing with the Beglitsa, Oitak (AYTK), Lanzhou (LZ), Pengyang (PY), Luochuan (LC), and XSD sequences, we can infer that the XSD sequence not only has experienced the strong pedogenesis and the warm and humid climate but also has influenced by the Himalayas, the Tibetan Plateau, the QM, and the LPM. These analyses help to clarify the climatic and environmental context of loess-paleosol sequence deposition phases and regional environmental evolutions. Keywords Grain-size distribution . Grain-size parameters . Climate change . Loess-paleosol sequence . Quaternary
Introduction The Quaternary is an era of dramatic changes in climate on Earth. Interglacials recurred with different periods (41 and 100 ka) before and after the middle Pleistocene transition, which have substantially affected the Earth’s climate (Yann and DeSantis 2014; Wang et al. 2018), and can be used to study the impact of large global temperature and sea level variations (Haggi et al. 2017). Continuous sequences of eolian loess-paleosol deposits as one of the most important continental paleoenvironmental records have been studied in many
Responsible Editor: Zhihua Zhang * Hui Qian [email protected] 1
School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710054, Shaanxi, China
2
Key Laboratory of Subsurface Hydrology and Ecological Effects in Arid Region of the Ministry of Education, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710054, Shaanxi, China
areas (Zerboni et al. 2015; Sun et al. 2018; Zens et al. 2018), including the Chinese Loess Plateau (Shen et al. 2017; Profe et al. 2018; Wang et al. 2017; Zhao et al. 2017; Wen et al. 2018). The Chinese Loess Plateau has the thickest,
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