Preliminary reconstruction of the desert and sandy land distributions in China since the last interglacial period

The desert and sandy land are the products of arid climate. The spatial distribution of modern deserts and sandy land in China and their relation to climate show following characteristics: arid and hyper-arid desert zones, at isohyet of less than 200 mm, are dominated by mobile dunes; semi-arid steppe and arid desert steppe with the precipitation between 200-400mm, are dominated by semi-fixed and fixed sand dunes; the precipitation of sub-humid forest grassland and humid forest zones with scattered fixed sand land is higher than 400 mm. With this as reference, in combination with considerable amount of paleoclimatic data in desert regions and adjacent regions, the distributions of desert and sandy land in China during the last interglacial period, the last glacial maximum (LGM), and the Holocene megathermal, were preliminarily reconstructed. The results compared with that of today show that the distribution of desert and sandy land in China was greatly dwindled during last interglacial period, and the mobile dune area was about two-thirds of that of today's, but greatly expanded during LGM. However, the dwindling area of desert and sandy land in the Holocene megathermal was smaller than that in the last interglacial period. The forcing mechanism was mainly related to the changes of East Asian winter and summer monsoon, south-northward swing of the westerlies and the variations of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau monsoon intensity caused by global climate changes during the cold and warm intervals since the last interglacial period.

中国主要沙漠(沙地)的氧同位素含量特征

为了解中国主要沙漠（沙地）的石英氧同位素分布特征,分别在各个沙漠（沙地）进行采样,采用同位素质谱技术分析样品的石英氧同位素组成。结果表明：中国主要沙漠（沙地）的石英δ18O变化范围为7.8‰14.9‰;各个沙漠（沙地）内部物质均质化程度差异较大,其中塔克拉玛干沙漠均质化程度最低,巴丹吉林沙漠均质化程度最高;中国主要沙漠（沙地）石英氧同位素空间变化特征明显,从中国北方沙漠（鄂尔多斯高原和阿拉善高原）至准噶尔盆地,到塔克拉玛干沙漠,再到柴达木沙漠,最后到乌兰布和沙漠呈现出依次增高趋势。