Crescentic dune migration and stabilization： Implications for interpreting paleo-dune deposits as paleoenvironmental records

Paleo-dune deposits have been widely used as a proxy indicator of past dune ac- tivity, which is further used to reconstruct paleoclimates. However, recent studies have criti- cally examined the reproducibility of dune chronologies and the complexity of paleo-dune deposits as paleoenvironmental records. This paper addresses questions on the paleoenvi- ronmental implications of dune chronostratigraphies that have been raised by those reviews, in the specific case of crescentic dunes, using a case study from the Mu Us dune field, north-central China. The processes of turn-over and stabilization of relatively small crescentic dunes are first investigated by observational evidence. In combination with the analysis of a simplified sand preservation model and stratigraphic records, the effect of dune morphody- namics on sand preservation is demonstrated. It is especially evident that thick, nearly in- stantaneously deposited sand units record dune stabilization near the very end of a dune activity episode, while thin sand units may signal the preservation of sand deposited earlier in episodes of activity. Interpreting the distribution of luminescence ages that indicate sand deposition over time is not as simple as assumed in some previous work. Low frequency of sand ages could indicate an interval of either dune field stabilization or extensive dune activity but poor sand preservation. A peak of sand age frequency likely represents a shift in dune field activity towards stabilization, not a peak of active dune extent, especially if it partially overlaps with an independently identified interval of stabilization （e.g. one recorded by pa- leosols）. The nature and magnitude of these biases in the distribution of sand ages over time are strongly affected by the magnitude of net sand accumulation, which is in turn related to sand supply, transport capacity and sand availability, and ultimately climate change. Rela- tively short dune stabilization and turn-over time （101 to 102 yrs） indicate that dune geomor- phic processes can quickly respond to short-term disturbance, but the chronology of that response must be interpreted in light of how those processes influence age distributions.

A preliminary quantitative reconstruction of precipitation in southern Mu Us sandy land at margin of Asian monsoon-dominated region during late Quaternary

We present the first quantitative estimation of monsoon precipitation during the late glaciaI-Holocene in the sandy land of northern China, based on organic carbon isotopic composition data from a loess-sand sequence at margin of the Mu Us sandy land. We use the relationship between monsoon precipitation and the carbon isotopic composition of modern soils as an analogue, with a minor modification, to reconstruct precipitation back to c. 47 ka ago. The preliminary results indicate that annual monsoon precipitation was high after 8 ka, with an average of 435 mm; and it decreased during 18 and 8 ka with a mean value of 194 mm. The precipitation value of 47-18 ka varied between the two. We compare the recon- structed precipitation with other records and paleoclimatic modeling results, showing that our record agrees with reconstructions of the monsoon precipitation from other sources, even capturing short climatic events such as the Younger Dryas. We suggest that solar irradiance, high-latitude temperature/ice volume and local evaporation have together modified moistures in the sandy land.

High resolution particle siz e analysis as a tool for interpreting incipient soils in loess

Thick loess deposits in the central U.S.A. often contain incipient soil zones that haveslightly darker color, more clay, and in most cases, stronger soil structure than surroundingunweathered loess. These incipient soil zones can be interpreted as the direct result of warmer orwetter climatic episodes, or as the sedimentary result of changes in local loess deposition rate.High-resolution particle size analyses by laser diffraction support a sedimentary explanation forincipient soil zones in Illinois and Nebraska, U.S.A. The soil zones contain more fine silt and claythan loess above and below. This could have resulted from a temporary reduction in the localloess deposition rate, leading to a greater relative contribution of far-traveled dust that containedmore fine silt and clay.