An erosional hiatus in Chinese loess sequences revealed by closely spaced optical dating

1 Introduction Loess deposits in China are the thickest and most extensively distributed in the world. Investigations overthe past around one century have significantly im- proved our understanding of the origin, transportation, deposition and evolution o…

An erosional hiatus in Chinese loess sequences revealed by closely spaced optical dating

Chinese loess deposits are some of the best continental records of palaeoclimatic and pa- laeoenvironmental changes in the late Cenozoic. Many investigations have shown that the long-time climate variations recorded by the loess-paleosol sequences can be correlated with global environ- mental changes. However,there are still some foundational questions concerning loess deposition that are not well answered,casting uncertainty on many previous conclusions,especially high-resolu- tion palaeoclimatic records. In this study,three typical loess-paleosol sections spanning the last glacial cy- cle were closely sampled for optically stimulated lu- minescence (OSL) dating and palaeoclimate inter- pretation along a northwest-southeast transect in Chinese Loess Plateau. Results show that there is a 4-5 ka hiatus in the typical loess deposits,and as a consequence suggests that the loess record is not continuous over millennial time scales. As such,pre- vious conclusions on climatic and environmental changes at millennial-centennial time scale,recon- structed through the loess record,should be reinves- tigated. The erosional hiatus may be forced by a pe- riod with strengthened East Asian winter monsoon and the less vegetation cover in the investigated sites.