104 resultados para Glacial landforms
Resumo:
Carbon is an essential element for life, food and energy. It is also a key element in the greenhouse gases and therefore plays a vital role in climatic changes. The rapid increase in atmospheric concentration of CO_2 over the past 150 years, reaching current concentrations of about 370 ppmv, corresponds with combustion of fossii fuels since the beginning of the industrial age. Conversion of forested land to agricultural use has also redistributed carbon from plants and soils to the atmosphere. These human activities have significantly altered the global carbon cycle. Understanding the consequences of these activities in the coming decades is critical for formulating economic, energy, technology, trade, and security policies that will affect civilization for generations. Under the auspices of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), several large international scientific efforts are focused on elucidating the various aspects of the global carbon cycle of the past decade. It is only possible to balance the global carbon cycle for the 1990s if there is net carbon uptake by terrestrial ecosystems of around 2 Pg C/a. There are now some independent, direct evidences for the existence of such a sink. Policymarkers involved in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UN-FCCC) are striving to reach consensuses on a 'safe path' for future emissions, the credible predictions on where and how long the terrestrial sink will either persist at its current level, or grow/decline in the future, are important to advice the policy process. The changes of terrestrial carbon storage depend not only on human activities, but also on biogeochemical and climatological processes and their interaction with the carbon cycles. In this thesis, the climate-induced changes and human-induced changes of carbon storage in China since the past 20,000 years are examined. Based on the data of the soil profiles investigated during China's Second National Soil Survey (1979-1989), the forest biomass measured during China's Fourth National Forest Resource Inventory (1989-1993), the grass biomass investigated during the First National Grassland Resource Survey (1980-1991), and the data collected from a collection of published literatures, the current terrestrial carbon storage in China is estimated to -144.1 Pg C, including -136.8 Pg C in soil and -7.3 Pg C in vegetation. The soil organic (SOC) and inorganic carbon (SIC) storage are -78.2 Pg C and -58.6 Pg C, respectively. In the vegetation reservoir, the forest carbon storage is -5.3 Pg C, and the other of-1.4 Pg C is in the grassland. Under the natural conditions, the SOC, SIC, forest and grassland carbon storage are -85.3 Pg C, -62.6 Pg C, -24.5 Pg C and -5.3 Pg C, respectively. Thus, -29.6 Pg C organic carbon has been lost due to land use with a decrease of -20.6%. At the same time, the SIC storage also has been decreased by -4.0 Pg C (-6.4%). These suggest that human activity has caused significant carbon loss in terrestrial carbon storage of China, especially in the forest ecosystem (-76% loss). Using the Paleocarbon Model (PCM) developed by Wu et al. in this paper, total terrestrial organic carbon storage in China in the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) was -114.8 Pg C, including -23.1 Pg C in vegetation and -86.7 Pg C in soil. At the Middle Holocene (MH), the vegetation, soil and total carbon were -37.3 Pg C, -93.9 Pg C and -136.0 Pg C, respectively. This implies a gain of-21.2 Pg C in the terrestrial carbon storage from LGM to HM mainly due to the temperature increase. However, a loss of-14.4 Pg C of terrestrial organic carbon occurred in China under the current condition (before 1850) compared with the MH time, mainly due to the precipitation decrease associated with the weakening of the Asian summer monsoon. These results also suggest that the terrestrial ecosystem in China has a substantial potential in the restoration of carbon storage. This might be expected to provide an efficient way to mitigate the greenhouse warming through land management practices. Assuming that half of the carbon loss in the degraded terrestrial ecosystem in current forest and grass areas are restored during the next 50 years or so, the terrestrial ecosystem in China may sequestrate -12.0 Pg of organic carbon from the atmosphere, which represents a considerable offset to the industry's CO2 emission. If the ' Anthropocene' Era will be another climate optimum like MH due to the greenhouse effect, the sequestration would be increased again by -4.3 - 9.0 Pg C in China.
Resumo:
After researching the coupling relationship among choosing raw material, stone technology, environmental change and Huaman evolution stage of archeological sites in different sediment in north China, the author thinks that: The human behavior is different in loessic region between glacial and interglacial ages. In Human evolution procession, Human erectus and early Human sapiens may co-exist in north China before L2, but after L2Human erectus disappear, and the stone technology of early Human sapiens become more progression. After comparing the age and environment, geology context, stone technology and using fire between them, we may make a preliminary conclusion that the environmental change during L2 maybe the outer reason and different capability of adaptation between Human erectus and early Human Sapiensis is the inner reason of Human erectus becoming disappear. The environmental change in last glacial climax and deglacial may result in new crowd and new culture entering into North China, which break the culture tradition which exist since early stage of palaeolithic. And play an important role from palaeolithic stage into neolithic stage. So unstable envirnmental change play an important role in Human evolution procession, and different scale environment change have different effect, large scale environmental change make small effect, but millenary scale even more short scale environmental change may bear more important role, some times it can transfer the evolution direction.
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The Grove Mountains, including 64 nunataks, is situated on an area about 3200km2 in the inland ice cap of east Antarctica in Princess Elizabeth land (72o20'-73°101S, 73°50'-75o40'E), between Zhongshan station and Dome A, about 450km away from Zhongshan station (69°22'S, 76°22'E). Many workers thought there was no pedogenesis in the areas because of the less precipitation and extreme lower temperature. However, during the austral summer in 1999-2000, the Chinaer 16 Antarctic expedition teams entered the inland East Antarctica and found three soil spots in the Southern Mount Harding, Grove Mountains, East Antarctica. It is the first case that soils are discovered in the inland in East Antarctica. Interestingly, the soils in this area show clay fraction migration, which is different from other cold desert soils. In addition, several moraine banks are discovered around the Mount Harding. The soil properties are discussed as below. Desert pavement commonly occurs on the three soil site surfaces, which is composed of pebbles and fragments formed slowly in typical desert zone. Many pebbles are subround and variegated. These pebbles are formed by abrasion caused by not only wind and wind selective transportation, but also salt weathering and thaw-freezing action on rocks. The wind blows the boulders and bedrocks with snow grains and small sands. This results in rock disintegration, paved on the soil surface, forming desert pavement, which protects the underground soil from wind-blow. The desert pavement is the typical feature in ice free zone in Antarctica. There developed desert varnish and ventifacts in this area. Rubification is a dominant process in cold desert Antarctic soils. In cold desert soils, rubification results in relatively high concentrations of Fed in soil profile. Stained depth increases progressively with time. The content of Fed is increasing up to surface in each profile. The reddish thin film is observed around the margin of mafic minerals such as biotite, hornblende, and magnetite in parent materials with the microscope analyzing on some soil profiles. So the Fed originates from the weathering of mafic minerals in soils. Accumulations of water-soluble salts, either as discrete horizons or dispersed within the soil, occur in the soil profiles, and the salt encrustations accumulate just beneath surface stones in this area. The results of X-ray diffraction analyses show that the crystalline salts consist of pentahydrite (MgSO4-5H2O), hexahydrite (MgSO4-6H2O), hurlbutite (CaBe2(PO4)2), bloedite (Na2Mg(S04)2-4H2O), et al., being mainly sulfate. The dominant cations in 1:5 soil-water extracts are Mg2+ and Na+, as well as Ca2+ and K+, while the dominant anion is SO42-, then NO3-, Cl- and HCO3-. There are white and yellowish sponge materials covered the stone underside surface, of which the main compounds are quartz (SiO2, 40.75%), rozenite (FeSOKkO, 37.39%), guyanaite (Cr2O3-1.5H2O, 9.30%), and starkeyite (MgSO4-4H2O, 12.56%). 4) The distribution of the clay fraction is related to the maximum content of moisture and salts. Clay fraction migration occurs in the soils, which is different from that of other cold desert soils. X-ray diffraction analyses show that the main clay minerals are illite, smectite, then illite-smectite, little kaolinite and veirniculite. Mica was changed to illite, even to vermiculite by hydration. Illite formed in the initial stage of weathering. The appearance of smectite suggests that it enriched in magnesium, but no strong eluviation, which belongs to cold and arid acid environment. 5) Three soil sites have different moisture. The effect moisture is in the form of little ice in site 1. There is no ice in site 2, and ice-cement horizon is 12 cm below the soil surface in site 3. Salt horizon is 5-10 cm up to the surface in Site 1 and Site 2, while about 26cm in site 3. The differentiation of the active layer and the permafrost are not distinct because of arid climate. The depth of active layer is about 10 cm in this area. Soils and Environment: On the basis of the characteristics of surface rocks, soil colors, horizon differentiation, salt in soils and soil depth, the soils age of the Grove Mountains is 0.5-3.5Ma. No remnants of glaciations are found on the soil sites of Mount Harding, which suggests that the Antarctic glaciations have not reached the soil sites since at least 0.5Ma, and the ice cap was not much higher than present, even during the Last Glacial Maximum. The average altitude of the contact line of level of blue ice and outcrop is 2050m, and the altitude of soil area is 2160m. The relative height deviation is about 110m, so the soils have developed and preserved until today. The parental material of the soils originated from alluvial sedimentary of baserocks nearby. Sporepollen were extracted from the soils, arbor pollen grains are dominant by Pinus and Betula, as well as a small amount Quercus, Juglans, Tilia and Artemisia etc. Judging from the shape and colour, the sporepollen group is likely attributed to Neogene or Pliocene in age. This indicates that there had been a warm period during the Neogene in the Grove Mountains, East Antarctica.
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The study of biogenic proxy of tropical and subtropical regions provides important evidence about the process and history of vegetation and environmental changes, and is of globally importance for understanding the dynamic mechanism of paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental changes. The sediments from the Huguangyan Maar lake in Guangdong Province offer a continuous high-resolution record of the past 55 ka about environmental and vegetational changes. The studies of chronology, and physical, chemical environmental proxies have provided much important information about the paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic histories. The phytolith, a new biogenicl proxy, has been used to determine the nature and types of plants in this area since the last 55 ka. This study presents a preliminary result about the characteristics of phytolith shapes, the variations of the fossils assemblages, and their significance for environmental changes. Moreover, the author probes the process of special specie evolution and their relationship to climatic parameters. The history of fire has been reconstructed based on the variations in charcoals. The main results and conclusions include: 28 types of phytoliths from 233 samples have been identified. Their environmental meanings are investigated in detail. Based on the variations in phytolith associations, the history and process of climatic and environmental changes in the last 55 kaBP have been established for this region. Climatic changes experienced eight intervals during this period, showing the variations of hot-humid to cool-try climate in the ten thousands years scale, and a shorter dry-hot climate condition in millennial scale. The history of palm plant has been established in this region. Two peaks appeared from 55-39 ka and since the Holocene. Plants in Bambusoideae have been growing in this area all the period, representing the impact of the East Asian summer monsoon. Bamboo plants have similar tendency in their abundance to palm plants, but with a lag of 1-2 ka BP. Panicoideae plants, the representative of C4 plants, have 6 flourishing periods occurred at 54.5, 44, 41.5, 32.5, 14, and 10 kaBP, respectively, reflecting 6 times short-term arid events. Charcoal record from the Huguang Marr lake reveals the history of nature fire, that mostly happened in dry period of last glacial from 55-10 kaBP, centered at 50-45, 40-35, 30-25, and 20-15kaBP, showing about a cycle of 10,000 years.
Resumo:
In this study, we examined the surface features of quartz grains, the quartz oxygen isotopic ratios and the mineralogical compositions of the loess - paleosol - red clay sediments systematically. The surface features of quartz grains do not show significant changes of the dust deposits through the past seven million years. The particles were mainly created in the process of glacial and frost weathering of high mountains. Then the surfaces were altered in some degree by the flood and wind abrasion. The surface features registered all these processes. The assemblages of surface features changed for four times in the past seven million years, the occurrence ages are: 5.0~4.2MaBP, about 3.6MaBP, about 2.6MaBP and about 0.9MaBP, respectively. This may indicate that there were uplift events of the Tibetan Plateau during those times. The oxygen isotopic compositions of quartz in the sediments represent the oxygen isotopic compositions of the initial dusts because of the stable properties of quartz both physically and chemically. The oxygen isotopic compositions of 4~16um quartz changed significantly at about 2.6MaBP, decreasing from about 19.5%o to about 18.5%o. This decrease of quartz oxygen isotopic ratio suggests that the environments of the dust source areas changed at that time, or the range of dust source area changed at that time. The environmental change may result from the structural evolution of the Tibetan Plateau and global cooling at that time. The coarse fractions (>30μm) of the dust deposits were examined using the EDXA device for mineral identification. The quartz content has a decrease trend during 7~2MaBP, then increase rapidly at about 2MaBP. After 2MaBP, quartz content continues to decrease. The Ca-plagioclase content / quartz content ratio increase at about 3.6MaBP. The ratio shows a peak of 3-6 fold values at about 2.5~1.8MaBP, the cause of this is still unknown. The Ca-plagioclase content / quartz content ratio continues to increase after 1 MaBP. The flowing can be regarded as the conclusion remarks of this study: Some of the red clay sediment of the Chinese Loess Plateau (at least Lingtai and Jingchuan red clays) is eolian in origin. The quartz grains from dust deposits throughout the past seven million yeas showed the clues of glacial and frost processes. This indicates that the high mountains of western China reached a certain altitude to favor the glacial and/or frost processes at least seven millions years before. The weathering intensities of the past seven nnillion yeas have a decreasing trend. In about 5~4.5MaBP, the weathering is relatively weak, and the dust supply is relatively low. At about 3.6MaBP and 2.6MaBP, the dust supply increased significantly. The mineralogical composition, the quartz surface feature and the quartz oxygen isotope composition were influenced by the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau. The Plateau may have reached a certain altitude to generate the arid regions of inland China and favor the glacial and frost weathering. And it underwent a phased uplift, which have uplift events at about 3.6MaBP and 2.6MaBP.
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A continuous long (224m) and high-resolution core TY2 was recovered from paleo-maar-lake Tianyang, tropical South China. Based on the diatom records of the upper 130-m core, this paper focuses on exploring climate change and the lake evolution history in tropical South China during the past 240ka. The most typical and unique characteristics of the diatom assemblages is that, Aulacoseira granulata was dominant or absolutely dominant species (80-90%) during most parts of the 130-m core, while Cyclotella stelligera var. tenuis and Fragilaria construens var. venter were subdominant species in only limited parts of the lower and upper core, respectively. Time scale is always the biggest problem for the study of TY2 core, so although diatom is seldom used for establishing time scale, here we attempt this by correlating the diatom-reconstructed temperature sequence with the time scale of ODP core 806B from Equatorial Western Pacific. Verified by the few most reliable ages from TY2 core and the parallel core TYl, a rather reasonable and reliable time scale was established. 01S 7/6 falls at the depth of 100m (ca. 194kaBP), OIS 6/5 at 75m (ca. 132kaBP), OIS 5/4 at 46m (ca. 75kaBP), OIS 4-3 at 35m (ca. 60kaBP). Qualitative and quantitative environmental reconstructions are made on the basis of diatom assemblage ecotype and EDDI dataset. Correlation of diatom-reconstructed temperature and moisture changes of Core TY2 with pollen-reconstructed temperature and rainfall sequence of Core TYl proves that the results are quite consistent in most periods. Thus the reconstruction results from diatom are quite reliable, and probably have a much higher resolution than pollen results. Combined with lithological and magnetic susceptibility variations, the diatom analysis reveals that, the general climate in tropical South China during the past 240ka was warm and wet. On the time scale of glacial-interglacial, warm and wet, cool and dry are not always synchronous. It was relatively warm-wet during the penultimate interglacial, cool-dry during the penultimate glacial, warm-dry during the last interglacial, and cooler-drier during the last glacial. In contrast, on the time scale of subglacial-subinterglacial scales, warm and dry, cool and wet corresponds very obviously, showing very clear 21-23 ka precession cycle. Analysis also shows that, the water of Tianyang paleo-maar-lake was generally warm, turbulent, turbid, meso-trophic, slightly alkaline, low conductivity and fresh during the past 240 kaBP, with small variations in some parts. Tianyang paleolake experienced shallow to semi-deep lake in OIS7d, open shallow lake in OIS7c-OIS5b, shallow coastal lake in OIS5a-OIS4c, swamp in OIS4b, and then completely dried up in OIS3c. The lake evolution was mainly controlled by temperature and precipitation changes in tropical China. While temperature and precipitation changes were probably controlled by the migrations of monsoon rainband and the evaporation rate, which was in turn controlled by the evolution of East Asian monsoon. Therefore, when the summer monsoon was strongest the climate was warm-dry, when stronger the climate was warm-wet; when the winter monsoon was strongest the climate was cool-dry, stronger cool-wet. This mechanism caused the warm-dry sub interglacial and cool-wet subglacial climate in the tropical South China.
Resumo:
Analysis of periodic oscillations of climate is very important in understanding the behavior of the climate system. Milankovitch hypothesis, which holds that the glacial-interglacial climatic cycles during the Quaternary were primarily driven by variations in orbital parameters, has been supported by substantial geological evidence. Continuous long-term and high-resolution records are crucial to detect how variations of Earth's orbital parameters affected climate before the Quaternary when the boundary conditions were significantly different. Qinan loess formed in the Miocene is nearly continuous aeolian deposit in northern China. Previous study has established a constrained chronology, which provides a basis to examine long-term climatic variations. One of important issues to untangle the mechanisms behind major climate changes is the investigation of climate cycles recorded in Qinan loess. In this paper, two climatic proxies, magnetic susceptibility and redness, are analyzed for QA-I section to evaluate climate cycles using Maximum entropy spectral analysis and Blackman-Tuckey method. Main conclusions are presented as following: Results exhibit significant peaks at periods of 100 ka, 64 ka, 41 ka, 30 ka and 23 ka, but also 1000 ka, 600 ka and 400 ka. These peaks correspond to the dominant periods of the Earth's orbit parameters, which indicates that the formation of the aeolian sediment in northern China might be primarily driven by variations in orbital parameters. Fluctuations with different cycles respectively dominated in different periods. Major shifts in the dominant cycles occurred at 20.3, 19.0, 17.9, 15.2, 12.5 and 11.3 Myr ago. The transition that happened at 17.9 Myr ago was synchronous with the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, while others at 15.2, 12.5 and 11.3 Myr ago were in good agreement with the timing of the development of Antarctic ice sheet. Therefore we inferred that these shifts might be related to changes in global ice volume and/or the Tibetan uplift. 3. The strong period of 100 ka is observed between 17.9 and 15.2, and 12.5 and 11.3 Myr ago. Ice sheet-climate models that have been used to explain the cause of the 100 ka period since the middle Pleistocene couldn't be responsible for driving the 100 ka climate cycle in the Miocene in Northern China because of the different boundary of climatic conditions between the Quaternary and Miocene. Further investigation is needed to understand how this cycle became dominant in Qinan loess records during these two time segments.
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There are four chapters in this dissertation. The first chapter briefly synthesizes the basic theories, methods and present-day applying situation of environmental magnetism. The second chapter probes into the magnetic mineral diagenesis in the post-glacial muddy sediments from the southeastern South Yellow Sea and its response to marine environmental changes, using the muddy sediment of Core YSDP103 formed in the shelf since about 13 ka BP. The third chapter illustrates the high-resolution early diagenetic processes by investigating the rapidly deposited muddy sediments during the last 6 ka in Cores SSDP-102 and SSDP-103 from the near-shore shelf of Korea Strait. The fourth chapter presents the results of detailed rock magnetic investigation of the surface sediments from the fine-grained depositional area on the outer shelf of the East China Sea in an attempt to provide environmental magnetic evidence for the provenance of the fine-grained deposit. Core YSDP103 was retrieved in the muddy deposit under the cold eddy of the southeastern South Yellow Sea, and the uppermost 29.79 m core represents the muddy sediments formed in the shelf since about 13 ka BP. The lower part from 29.79 to 13.35 m, called Unit A2, was deposited during the period from the post-glacial transgression to the middle Holocene (at about 6 ~(14)C ka BP) when the rising sea level reached its maximum, while the upper part above 13.35 m (called Unit Al) was deposited in a cold eddy associated with the formation of the Yellow Sea Warm Current just after the peak of post-glacial sea level rise. For the the uppermost 29.79 m core, detailed investigation of rock-magnetic properties and analyses of grain sizes and geochemistry were made. The experimental results indicate that the magnetic mineralogy of the core is dominated by magnetite, maghemite and hematite and that, except for the uppermost 2.35 m, the magnetic minerals were subject to reductive diagenesis leading to significant decline of magnetic mineral content and the proportion of low-coercivity component. More importantly, ferrimagnetic iron sulphide (greigite) is found in Unit A2 but absent in Unit Al, suggesting the control of marine environmental conditions on the magnetic mineral diagenesis. Magnetic parameters show abrupt changes across the boundary between the Unit Al and A2, which reflects a co-effect of environmental conditions and primary magnetic components of the sediments on the diagenesis. Alternating zones of high and low magnetic parameters are observed in Unit A2 of Core YSDP103, which is presumably due to periodic changes of the concentration and/or grain size of magnetic minerals carried into the study area. Cores SSDP-102 and SSDP-103, two studied sediment cores from the Korea Strait contain mud sequences (14 m and 32.62 m in thickness) that were deposited during the last 6,000 years. Analyses of grain sizes and geochemistry of the cores have demonstrated that the sediments have uniform lithology and geochemical properties, however, marked down-core changes in magnetic properties suggest that diagenesis has significantly impacted the magnetic properties. An expanded view of early diagenetic reactions that affect magnetic mineral assemblages is evident in these rapidly deposited continental shelf sediments compared to deep-sea sediments. The studied sediments can be divided into four descending intervals, based on magnetic property variations. Interval 1 is least affected by diagenesis and has the highest concentrations of detrital magnetite and hematite, and the lowest solid-phase sulfur contents. Interval 2 is characterized by the presence of paramagnetic pyrite and sharply decreasing magnetite and hematite concentrations, which suggest active reductive dissolution of detrital magnetic minerals, the absolute minimum abundance of magnetite is reached at the end of this interval. Interval 3 is marked by a progressive loss of hematite with depth, and at the base of this interval, 82% to 88% of the hematite component was depleted and the bulk magnetic mineral concentration was reduced to the lowest value in the entire studied mud section. Interval 4 has an increasing down-core enhancement of authigenic greigite, which is interpreted to have formed due to arrested pyritization resulting from consumption of pore water sulfate with depth. This is the first clear demonstration from an active depositional environment for a delay of thousands of years for acquisition of a magnetization carried by greigite. This detailed view of diagenetic processes in continental shelf sediments suggests that studies of geomagnetic field behavior from such sediments should be conducted with care. Paleoceanographic and paleoclimatic studies based on the magnetic properties of shelf sediments with high sedimentation rates like those in the Korea Strait are also unlikely to provide a meaningful signature associated with syn-depositional environmental processes. The rock magnetic properties of the surface sediments from the fine-grained depositional area on the outer shelf of the East China Sea, an area surrounded by sands, are investigated with a view to providing information on the sediment provenance. Multiple magnetic parameters such as magnetic susceptibility (%), anhysteretic remanent magnetization (ARM), saturation rernanent magnetization (SIRM), coercivities of SIRM (Her), and S ratios (relative abundance of low-coercivity magnetic minerals) are measured for all 179 surface samples, and partial representative samples are examined for their magnetic hysteresis parameters, temperature-dependence of magnetic susceptibility and x-ray diffraction spectra. Our research indicates that the magnetic mineralogy is dominated by magnetite with a small amount of hematite and is primarily of pseudo-single domain (PSD) to multidomain (MD) nature with a detrital origin. In the surface sediments, the granulometry of magnetic fractions is basically independent of grain sizes of the sediment containing the magnetic grains, and the composition of magnetic minerals remains almost homogeneous, that is, with a relatively constant ratio of low to high coercivity fraction throughout the area. The magnetic concentration in the study area generally decreases to the east or southeast accompanied by magnetic-particle fining to the east or to the northeast. The geographic pattern of magnetic properties is most reasonably explained by a major source of sediment jointly from the erosion of the old Huanghe River deposit and the discharge of the Changjiang River. The rock magnetic data facilitate understanding of the transport mechanism of fine-grained sediments in the outer shelf of the East China Sea.
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Eolian deposits are important for paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental reconstructions in arid and semi-arid regions. In China active sand dunes mainly occur in the northwest inland basins ,whereas deserts dominated by semi-stabilized sand dunes are mainly distributed in the northeastern semi-arid and sub-humid regions. Recent studies indicate that prompt desertification in northeastern China has been serious.Thus northeastern China is one of the key sites on which to study the history of past environmental changes. However, previous studies focused mainly on big scale environmental changes, whereas changes in the environment during the Holocene have not been well studied. This research uses optically stimulated luminescence to date fossil sand dunes in Hunshandake desert in order to offer the accurate time scale to reconstruct the history of eolian activity in the region. Furthermore,we compare this region with other deserts in northern China.The main conclusions is following: Active dune formation in northeastern China lasted from the Last Glacial Maximum to about 10 000aB.P. It has also been shown that the warm climate of the Holocene was interrupted by a cold/dry dune-forming episode at about 2 800-1 800aB.R. The Holocene Optimum occurred between 10 000-2 800aB.R, and a later warm/humid dune stabilization phase lasted from at least 1 900-1 500aB.R. The youngest age on the uppermost soil unit in Hunshandake desert yielded an age of 90aB.P.,on which the younger sand deposits,and the youngest age on the sand in Hulun Buir desert is 40aB.R. The mean annual precipitation of these regions is up to 450 mm. But these deserts locate in middle latitudes regions, where the climate is sub-humid, semi-arid continental monsoon.Under present climatic conditions, there should be no active sand dunes in northeastern China. So the appearance of active sand in northeastern China is not due to natural factors,but to extensive land reclamation and cultivation.
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Chinese National Antarctic Research Expedition (CHTNARE) has collected 4480 meteorite specimens in the Grove Mountains, East Antarctica, from 1998 to 2003. According to the location characteristics and the diversity of the classification, the paper concludes that the Grove Mountains is another important meteorite concentration area in the Antarctica. The Concentration mechanisms at the site could be related to the last glacier activity and katabatic wind. An empirical model was proposed: 1) Probably during the Last Glacial Maximum, ice flow overrided the Gale Escarpment range in the area. Formerly concentrated meteorites were carried by the new glacier and stayed in the terminal moraine when the glacier retreated. 2) Blown by strong katabatic wind, Newly exposed meteorites on the ablation zone were scattered on the blue ice at the lee side of the Gale escarpment. Some of them would be buried when they were moved further onto the firn snow zone. Many floating meteorites stopped and mustered at the fringe of the moraine. The chemical-petrographic of 31 meteorites were assigned based on electron probe microanalyses, petrography and mineralogy, including 1 martian lherzolitic shergottite, 1 eucrite, 1 extreme fine grain octahedron iron meteorite, and 28 ordinary chondrites (the chemical groups: 7 H-group, 13 L-group, 6 LL-group, 2 L/LL group; the petrographic types: 6 unequilibrated type 3 and 22 equilibrated type 4-6). GRV99028 meteorite has the komatiite-like spinifex texture consisting of acicular olivine crystals and some hornblende-family minerals in the interstitial region. Possibly it has crystallized from a supercooled, impact-generated, ultramafic melt of the host chondrite, then experienced the retrogressive metamorphism. Four typical chondrule textures were studied: porphyritic texture, radiative texture, barred texture and glass texture. The minerals are characteristically enriched in MgO content.
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The term black carbon is used to describe a relatively inert and ubiquitous form of carbon, comprising a range of materials from char and charcoal to element or graphite carbon produced by the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and biomass. Due to its inertness, the BC in soils, lacustrine and marine sediments and ice can persist over a long period of time. So BC signatures in geological deposits can be used as evidence of natural fires happened in their surroundings. To study the temporal and spatial changes in paleofires over the Chinese Loess Plateau, black carbon concentrations were analyzed on the loess-paleosol samples from three sections including Lijiayuan, Lingtai and Weinan along a north-south transect. Using the orbitally-tuned time-scales of the sections, the black carbon sedimentation rates (BCSR) were calculated. Meanwhile, with objective to document fine resolution fire history during late Pleistocene and Holocene periods, we measured BC concentrations of loess-paleosol samples at dense sampling intervals since 28 ka BP. in Lijiayuan section. The BCSR of the samples were also calculated. In addition, we also conducted observation on black carbon morphologies to examine their sources. Based on the results, the following remarks can be concluded: 1. In the last two glacial cycles, the BCSR values in glacial periods are 2-3 times higher than in interglacial periods, and the BCSR variability has a relatively strong precession-associated 23 kyr period, suggesting that the glacial cold-dry climate conditions were apt to induce natural fires over the Loess Plateau, 2. Comparison of the BCSR records among the three loess sections demonstrates that natural fire occurrence was much more intensive and frequent in the northern and interglacial periods. 3. Pollen records and carbon isotope analyses of organic matter have shown that the Loess Plateau was covered by an Artemisia-dominated grassland vegetation both during glacial and interglacial periods, So grassland fires were the dominant fire types in the Plateau, which is also corroborated by the observation of black carbon morphology. In addition, statistics and comparison of BC particle sizes among the sections demonstrated that BC records probably reflected local fires. 4. According to previous studies about the effect of fires on vegetation changes, we considered that the fires might play an important role in the expansion of grassland during glacial periods, besides the control of climate changes. 5. The high resolution black carbon record in Lijiayuan section has shown that the BCSR series well documented Younger dryas (YD) and Heinrich (HI和H2) events, suggesting that natural fires in the northwestern part of Chinese Loess Plateau could regularly respond to the millennial scale climate oscillation.
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With the development of oil and gas exploration, the exploration of the continental oil and gas turns into the exploration of the subtle oil and gas reservoirs from the structural oil and gas reservoirs in China. The reserves of the found subtle oil and gas reservoirs account for more than 60 percent of the in the discovered oil and gas reserves. Exploration of the subtle oil and gas reservoirs is becoming more and more important and can be taken as the main orientation for the increase of the oil and gas reserves. The characteristics of the continental sedimentary facies determine the complexities of the lithological exploration. Most of the continental rift basins in East China have entered exploration stages of medium and high maturity. Although the quality of the seismic data is relatively good, this areas have the characteristics of the thin sand thickness, small faults, small range of the stratum. It requests that the seismic data have high resolution. It is a important task how to improve the signal/noise ratio of the high frequency of seismic data. In West China, there are the complex landforms, the deep embedding the targets of the prospecting, the complex geological constructs, many ruptures, small range of the traps, the low rock properties, many high pressure stratums and difficulties of boring well. Those represent low signal/noise ratio and complex kinds of noise in the seismic records. This needs to develop the method and technique of the noise attenuation in the data acquisition and processing. So that, oil and gas explorations need the high resolution technique of the geophysics in order to solve the implementation of the oil resources strategy for keep oil production and reserves stable in Ease China and developing the crude production and reserves in West China. High signal/noise ratio of seismic data is the basis. It is impossible to realize for the high resolution and high fidelity without the high signal/noise ratio. We play emphasis on many researches based on the structure analysis for improving signal/noise ratio of the complex areas. Several methods are put forward for noise attenuation to truly reflect the geological features. Those can reflect the geological structures, keep the edges of geological construction and improve the identifications of the oil and gas traps. The ideas of emphasize the foundation, give prominence to innovate, and pay attention to application runs through the paper. The dip-scanning method as the center of the scanned point inevitably blurs the edges of geological features, such as fault and fractures. We develop the new dip scanning method in the shap of end with two sides scanning to solve this problem. We bring forward the methods of signal estimation with the coherence, seismic wave characteristc with coherence, the most homogeneous dip-sanning for the noise attenuation using the new dip-scanning method. They can keep the geological characters, suppress the random noise and improve the s/n ratio and resolution. The rutine dip-scanning is in the time-space domain. Anew method of dip-scanning in the frequency-wavenumber domain for the noise attenuation is put forward. It use the quality of distinguishing between different dip events of the reflection in f-k domain. It can reduce the noise and gain the dip information. We describe a methodology for studying and developing filtering methods based on differential equations. It transforms the filtering equations in the frequency domain or the f-k domain into time or time-space domains, and uses a finite-difference algorithm to solve these equations. This method does not require that seismic data be stationary, so their parameters can vary at every temporal and spatial point. That enhances the adaptability of the filter. It is computationally efficient. We put forward a method of matching pursuits for the noise suppression. This method decomposes any signal into a linear expansion of waveforms that are selected from a redundant dictionary of functions. These waveforms are chosen in order to best match the signal structures. It can extract the effective signal from the noisy signal and reduce the noise. We introduce the beamforming filtering method for the noise elimination. Real seismic data processing shows that it is effective in attenuating multiples and internal multiples. The s/n ratio and resolution are improved. The effective signals have the high fidelity. Through calculating in the theoretic model and applying it to the real seismic data processing, it is proved that the methods in this paper can effectively suppress the random noise, eliminate the cohence noise, and improve the resolution of the seismic data. Their practicability is very better. And the effect is very obvious.
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This paper is concerned of the I0Be and 26A1 exposure ages of bedrocks in the Grove Mountains (GMs), inland of East Antarctica, and in the Larsemann Hills, peripheral alongshore of East Antarctica, respectively. The results of our study indicate that the higher bedrock samples in two profiles in the GMs have minimum exposure ages of-2 Ma, and their 26Al/10Be can be projected into the erosion island, which means they only have simple exposure history. The actual exposure ages may be mid-late Pliocene because the bedrocks should have erosion. The relationship between the altitudes and cosmogenic nuclide concentrations of those higher samples suggests that they have not reached secular equilibrium, means that a higher than -2300m East Antarctic Ice Sheet (EAIS) existed in the GMs before mid-Pliocene, and decreased monotonously for a period since mid-Pliocene. Lower samples of the two profiles have much younger exposure ages, and had been covered at least once obviously implicated by that their 26Al/10Be are projected down to the erosion island. Using a 10Be-26Al project figure to determine the history of the GMs samples shows that the lower samples have minimum total initial exposure and cover time of 1.7-2.8Ma, suggesting that those samples were exposed initially since about late Pliocene too, and the interior EAIS fluctuated after late Plicoene obviously. The altitudes and exposure ages of all the GMs samples indicate that the ice surface level of the interior EAIS in the GMs was >2300m during or before mid Pliocene (more than 200m higher than present ice surface level), and only rose to -2200m during the fluctuation occurred after late Pliocene, thus the elevation of the interior EAIS in the GMs after mid-Pliocene was never higher than during or before mid Pliocene even during the Quaternary Glacial Maximum. According to data from the GMs and other parts of East Antarctica, a larger East Antarctic Ice Sheet existed before mid-Pliocene, thus the elevation decrease of interior EAIS in the GMs after mid Pliocene may be a director of volume decrease of the EAIS. Since the Antarctic climate has a cooling trend since ~3Ma, similar to the global climate change, the volume decrease of the EAIS since mid-Pliocene may beause of moisture supply decrease directly rather than atmosphere temperature change. As for the Larsemann Hills, samples farther to the glacier have exposure age of 40~50ka, means they exposed in the early time of Last Glacier Cycle, obviously earlier than the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Samples nearer to the glacier have exposure ages younger than LGM. Thus, different to the GMs, exposure ages of the Larsemann Hills samples have more obvious relationship to their distance from the glacier margin rather than to the altitudes of the samples.
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Three soil spots were found in Grove Mountains, east Antarctica during 1999-2000, when the Chinare 16th Antarctic expedition teams entered the inland Antarctica. The characteristics of soils in Grove Mountains are desert pavement coating the surface, abundant water soluble salt, negligible organ matter, and severe rubification and salinization, scarces of liquid water, partly with dry permafrost, corresponding with the soils of McMurdo, Transantarctic. The soils age of Grove Mountains is 0.5-3.5Ma. Podzolization and redoximorphism are the main features in coastal Wilks region, in addition, there is strong enrichment of organic matter in many soils of this region. The main soil processes of Fildes Peninsula of King George Island include the intense physical weathering, decalcification and weakly biochemical processes. Peat accumulation is the main processes in Arctic because of humid and cold environment.Based on synthesis of heavy minerals, particle size, quartz grain surface textures, as well as pollen in soils, the soils parent materials of Grove Mountains derived from alluvial sediment of the weathering bedrocks around soils, and formed during the warm period of Pliocene. The detailed information is followed .l)The results of heavy minerals particle size showed the parent minerals derived form the weathering bedrocks around soils. 2)The quartz sand surface textures include glacial crushing and abrasion such as abrasive conchoidal fractures and grain edges, abrasive subparallel linear fractures and angularity, subaqueous environments produce V-shaped and irregular impact pits, polished surface, and chemical textures, such as beehive solution pits, which showed the water is the main force during the sediment of the soil parent minerals. 3)The pollen consist of 40 plant species, of which at least 5 species including Ranunculaceae, Chenopodiaceae, Artemisia, Gramineae, Podocarpus belong to the Neogene vegetation except the species from the old continent. Compared with Neogene vegetation of Transantarctic Mountains, Antarctic, we concluded that they grow in warm Pliocene.