Detrital-Zircon Evidence for the Origin of the Late Quaternary Loess in Qingzhou, Shandong Province and Its Implications for the Evolution of the Yellow River

Abstract

The loess depositions in Shandong Province are important parts of loess records in eastern China, but their origin and genetic linkage between the Yellow River and the Chinese Loess Plateau are still unclear. This paper presents the detrital-zircon evidence for the origin and provenance evolution of the Qingzhou loess in Shandong Province. The results show that: (1) the Qingzhou loess was sourced from the sandy lands within the North China Plain that were fed by the silty materials from the Chinese Loess Plateau, the mountainous region in central Shandong Province, and the Yanshan and Taihang Mountains; (2) the Qingzhou loess was mainly sourced from the loess materials transported by the Yellow River, and the basal age of the Qingzhou loess indicates the timing of intensified aridification of the North China Plain and integration of the Yellow River was not later than 0.5 Ma; and (3) the provenance and grain-size of the Qingzhou loess underwent a significant transition at ∼0.22 Ma, which was related to the expansion of the sandy land within the North China Plain. Our results indicate that the origin of the loess on the North China Plain are obviously different from the loess on the Chinese Loess Plateau, and the increase of grain-size and accumulation rate in the loess records on the North China Plain at ∼0.22 Ma was due to the environmental deterioration of the eastern China.

Keywords

North China Plain / loess / Pleistocene / zircon / detrital-zircon / Yellow River

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