Pathways of Environmental Diagenesis and Their Effects on the Acquisition of Natural Remanent Magnetization Recorded in Chinese Loess and Paleosol

University Of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Minneapolis MN

Investigators

Abstract

Banerjee EAR-0003421 Century to millennial scale abrupt changes in summer rainfall and winter dust storms in the loess plateau region of China have been recorded in the varying grain-size, chemical composition and magnetic properties of the wind-borne loess sediments. The investigator will advance the current qualitative understanding of the relative variations in paleoclimate of China by calibrating the paleo-records from sediments in terms of rainfall and temperature variations. From Xining in the north-west to Huanxian in the south-east, a three-site transect with known temperature and rainfall variations will be sampled as a function of time, back to the last 130,000 years. These samples will be studied for their grain-size, chemical composition and magnetic properties, both in the field and in the laboratory, to establish an accurate paleoclimate record.