Impacts of grain size sorting and chemical weathering on the geochemistry of Jingyuan loess in the northwestern Chinese Loess Plateau

Major and trace elemental compositions of loess samples collected from the Jingyuan section in the northwestern Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) were analyzed to investigate the potential impacts of grain size sorting and chemical weathering on the loess geochemistry and to extract appropriate geochemical indices for better evaluating the East Asian monsoon variability. Based on variations of major and trace elements in different grain size fractions, seventeen elements were classified into three types: (1) Si and Na display higher contents with the increased particle sizes; (2) Al, Fe, Mg, K, Mn, Zn, Rb, Cr, V are mainly enriched in fine size fractions; (3) Ti, Ba, Zr, P. Ca and Sr show irregular variations among different size fractions. Comparison of Al-normalized elemental ratios with Zr/Rb and Rb/Sr ratios (two commonly employed indicators for grain size sorting and pedogenic weathering) indicates that Si/Al, Zr/Al, Ti/Al variations match well with Zr/Rb and grain size results, whilst Ca/Al, Sr/Al, P/Al ratios display similar variability as that of Rb/Sr ratio. Comparison of loess based proxies (e.g., elemental ratios, magnetic susceptibility, grain size) of Jingyuan section with speleothem and ice-core records confirms that elemental ratios of high-resolution loess sequences developed in the northwestern CLP can be employed to address fluctuations of the winter monsoon-induced grain size sorting and summer monsoon-related weathering and pedogenesis at glacial-interglacial and millennial timescales.</p

黄土中的碳酸盐矿物特征与化学风化

从中国黄土沉积中提取古环境演化信息已取得重大进展,然而,如何有效区分黄土中原生和次生碳酸盐,进而用于追踪粉尘的来源和揭示风化成壤的强度,仍有很大困难。为了辨别黄土中不同成因的碳酸盐矿物,本文从黄土高原西部靖远和古浪剖面中选取2个典型古土壤和黄土样品(S_0和L_1),分为5个粒级(&lt;4&mu;m,4~8d&mu;m,8-16&mu;m,16-32&mu;m和32~63&mu;m),进行了热重分析(TGA)和X射线衍射测试(XRD)。结果表明:1)黄土中的碳酸盐主要由方解石和白云石组成,原生方解石和白云石在黄土中的含量比古土壤中含量高,并偏富集于粗颗粒组分;2)次生方解石在古土壤中的含量比黄土中高,并显著富集于细颗粒组分。在黄土和古土壤全样和分粒级样品中,TGA和XRD方法分别测出的Carb-B/Carb-A和(方解石+白云石)/方解石比值变化一致,有望成为反映黄土风化成壤强度的新代用指标。</p