An isotopic study of the S1 paleosol carbonates from the central Loess Plateau of North China

The loess-paleosol sequence in the central Loess Plateau of China is produced under arid to sub-humid climatic conditions and contains abundant carbonates. These carbonates could be partly detrital derived from provenance by aerosol and partly authigenic precipitated during weathering and pedogenesis after deposition of the aerosol. Some previous studies have examined oxygen and carbon isotopic compositions of the carbonates by means of whole rock samples containing various amounts of detrital carbonates.This study separates authigenic carbonate from detrital one and only examines the former in order to investigate isotopic composition of the pedogenic carbonate and to discuss its relationships to the Asian paleomonsoon probably existing during the last interglacial time.