A rock magnetic record of Asian cooling and aridification processes during 1.95-0.40 Ma in the southeastern Chinese Loess Plateau

The southeastern Chinese Loess Plateau is the terminal deposition area of dusts transported by the East Asian winter monsoon and the frontal area penetrated by the East Asian summer monsoon,and thus a climate sensitive region.This paper reports a rock magnetic study of a Quaternary loess-paleosol section in such a region.We tried to reconstruct the paleoclimate evolution history in the region during 1.95–0.40 Ma with magnetic parameters.The results show a general up-section decreasing trend of the ratio of HIRM/(SIRM–IRM100 mT),indicating a long-term decreasing trend of hematite coercivities in the deposits,which can be mainly related to the cooling and aridification trend of the environment in interglacial depositional area and glacial dust source region.The ratio,lf/ARM,widely used to reflect the variations of magnetic mineral grain size,manifests a long-term increasing trend of the magnetic mineral grain size and tends to indicate an overall weakening trend of the East Asian summer monsoon that controlled the pedogenic intensity.Although the regional multi-segmented paleoclimatic records revealed by several magnetic parameters in our study,the long-term Asian cooling and aridification trend inferred here is of global correlation significance.     

Paleoclimate change recorded in the red earth and brown-yellow sediment of Late Quaternary for northeastern part of Guangdong Province, south to the Nanling Mountains, China

The paleoenvironment indicated by the geochronology, major oxides SiO2, Al2O3 and TOFE （Fe2O3 ＋ FeO）, and CIA （Chemical Index of Alteration） value of the red earth and brown-yellow silt primarily characterized by the Linjiang stratigraphic section, based on the geological investigation of Late Quaternary along the river banks of northeastern part of China＇s Guangdong Province, south to the Nanling Mountains, allow us to hypothesize that the red earth on the first terrace in northeastern part of Guangdong belongs to reticulated red clay developed in a hot-wet environment of the last interglacial period （132-73 ka BP）, similar to the monsoon environment in the northern margin of modern tropical zone, while the overlying brown-yellow silt layer mainly accumulated in a monsoon environment of warm temperate zone in the last glacial period （73-11 ka BP）, with the aeolian sand LJ3 representing an extreme period of worsening climate. Such a hypothesis corresponds well with predecessors＇ research on the paleoenvironment indicated by abundant fossils in both south and east to the Nanling Mountains. Hence, it follows that the bioclimatic zone did experience a large and rapid vicissitude in northeastern part of China＇s Guangdong Province, and even in the full extent of the region south to the Nanling Mountains from the last interglacial period to the last glacial period, with the red earth being replaced by the brown-yellow silty sediment, and even maybe with the Ailuropoda-Stegodon Fauna being replaced by the Penghu Fauna. This study may provide an important geological demonstration for the environmental response to global change in China＇s low latitudes on a 10 ka scale.     

Mid-Late Quaternary loess-paleosol sequence in Lantian’s Yushan,China: An environmental magnetism approach and its paleoclimatic significance

The application of rock magnetism methods to investigating the variations of magnetic minerals in the sediments is an important approach to the reestablishment of paleoclimate evolution. Thus we performed fine magnetic measurements on the loess-paleosol sequence (from L15 upwards to S5, in which L is short for Loess, S is short for Paleosol, the same hereinafter) of Yushan stratigraphic section, which is on the southeastern margin of Chinese Loess Plateau, in Lantian County of China’s Shaanxi Province, and the thickness of which is ca. 40 m. Our study shows that the primary magnetic carriers of loess and paleosol in this section are magnetite, maghemite, hematite and goethite. Thermomagnetic analyses on the samples of representative horizons show that the higher pedogenesis degree of the sediments, the smaller variations of magnetization there will be before and after heating, probably related to the pedogenic alteration of loess sediments. Analyses of several magnetic parameters show a significant discrepancy between the paleoclimatic conditions recorded in the strata from the loess unit L15 upward to the paleosol unit S5 in the study area and those recorded in the relative strata of other sections on the Chinese Loess Plateau, and those recorded in marine sediments, indicating the great impact of regional geological background. Similarly, the rapid and intensive change recorded in the segment from L15 to S9-1, and the significant difference between the paleoclimate evolutions of the two periods before and after the change (from L15 to S9-1, and from L9 to the base of S6) indicate the strong alteration of magnetic carriers in the study area as a result of the alternations of summer and winter monsoons in East Asia.