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A 1.5 Ma sporopollen record of paleoecologic environment evolution in the central Chinese Loess Plateau

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Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

A 1.5 Ma sporopollen record was obtained from a continuous loess-paleosol sequence at Chaona in the central Chinese Loess Plateau. It shows that (1) arid herbs of largelyArtemisia and Chenopodiaceae and arbors of mainlyPinus, Betula andQuercus dominate loess and paleosol, respectively, reflecting cycles of cold-dry and warm-humid conditions of glaciation and interglaciation; (2) that similar vegetation pattern and cold-dry condition were found in times of unusual thick and coarse loesses L9 and L15, which have been regarded as two extremely cold and dry times as indicated by inorganic climatic proxies; and (3) that shifts of vegetations from earlier forest-steppe to open-forest and steppe and then to steppe were found at 0.95 and 0.5 Ma, implying a stepwise of drying of the Loess Plateau in the Quaternary.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems (Lanzhou University), Ministry of Education & College of Resources and Environment, Lanzhou University, 730000, Lanzhou, China

    Fuli Wu, Xiaomin Fang, Yuzhen Ma & Jijun Li

  2. State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 710075, Xi’an, China

    Fuli Wu, Xiaomin Fang & Zhisheng An

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  1. Fuli Wu
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  2. Xiaomin Fang
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  3. Yuzhen Ma
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Correspondence to Fuli Wu.

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Wu, F., Fang, X., Ma, Y. et al. A 1.5 Ma sporopollen record of paleoecologic environment evolution in the central Chinese Loess Plateau. Chin.Sci.Bull. 49, 295–302 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03182815

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03182815

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