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Arid Land Geography ›› 2021, Vol. 44 ›› Issue (6): 1623-1634.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000–6060.2021.06.11

• Earth Surface Process • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Understanding and prospects of provenance and time-spatial differences in the Loess Plateau based on detrital zircon chronology

NIU Yanning1,2(),QI Lin3,4,QIAO Yansong3,4()   

  1. 1. College of Civil Eengineering, Lanzhou University of Technology, Lanzhou 730050, Gansu, China
    2. School of Earth Sciences and Mineral Resources, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, Gansu, China
    3. Institute of Geomechanics, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
    4. Key Laboratory of Neotectonic Movement and Geohazard, Beijing 100081, China
  • Received:2021-06-09 Revised:2021-08-14 Online:2021-11-25 Published:2021-12-03
  • Contact: Yansong QIAO E-mail:niuyn17@lzu.edu.cn;yansongqiao66@163.com

Abstract:

The Loess Plateau of China preserves the most widely distributed, thickest, and continuous aeolian dust deposits in the world. It is a valuable geological archive of continental paleoclimate and paleoenvironment in the Quaternary. For more than half a century, several studies have been conducted on the climate records of aeolian dust deposition and the genesis of the Loess Plateau. However, studies have yet to determine the exact source of loess dust and verify whether a temporal-spatial change occurred in the provenance history. In this study, existing zircon age spectral data are statistically analyzed to explore the genetic relationship of loess and the surrounding desert with orbital and tectonic age scales. Results reveal the following: (1) the application of zircon U-Pb age spectral method based on the obtained exact chronological information of deserts in northern arid regions may clarify the provenance relationship between loess and aeolian sand. (2) available data indicate that the provenance of L1 loess may be spatially different. (3) confirmation that the provenance of loess in the glacial-interglacial period has not changed significantly. (4) On the tectonic timescale, the age spectra of different regions indicate that the periods of possible provenance transfer have an obvious overlap. (5) The limited age spectral data of red clays suggest that spatial differences in provenance probably existed before the Quaternary. However, current data are limited; thus, further related studies should be conducted. Using this method, the history of changes in loess provenance may be explored on a continuous long-term scale, and data sets may be obtained and used for future provenance comparisons of multiple locations and profiles in the Loess Plateau.

Key words: detrital zircon U-Pb dating, source tracing, time and space differences, Loess Plateau