Intensive research on China’s Western Loess Plateau has located 63 Palaeolithic deposits, which together allow the authors to present a general model of hominin occupation from 80 000 to 18 000 years ago. Tools, subsistence and settlement correlate nicely with the climate: the warm wet MIS3 seeing expansion and more organised acquisition of quartz, and the Late Glacial Maximum that followed, a ...

Much of what we know about Quaternary climate has been learned from sedimentary records from the world’s oceans. With the exception of the extensive studies of the Chinese loess/paleosol sequence and more recent studies of long lake records, there are few long terrestrial climate records, particularly from the southern hemisphere. The loess record of Argentina provides an important opportunity ...

[1] Abstract: The arid region extending from the Caspian Sea into China contains some of the most extensive dust aerosol production areas in the world. Major element (Al, Fe, Ca, and S), rare earth element (REE), and isotopic (dS and dO) data from a 14.4-m-long firn core recovered on the Inilchek Glacier (Tien Shan Mountains, Kyrgyzstan; 5100-m elevation) are presented and used to investigate t...

A magnificent repository of Late Pleistocene terrestrial megafauna fossils is contained in ice-rich loess deposits of Alaska and Yukon, collectively eastern Beringia. The stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope compositions of bone collagen from these fossils are routinely used to determine paleodiet and reconstruct the paleoecosystem. This approach requires consideration of changes in...

[1] The magnitude of future CO2-induced climate warming is difficult to predict because of uncertainties in the role of ecosystems and oceans as CO2 sources and sinks. Siberia has extensive areas (1 10 km) of deep (up to 90m) deposits of organic-rich frozen loess (wind-blown silt) that accumulated during the Pleistocene but have not been considered in most global carbon (C) inventories. Similar...

Constraining the controls on distribution of sediment at a continental scale is critical step in understanding long-term landscape and climate evolution. In particular, role rivers wider routing impacts aeolian loess formation remains limited. Extensive Quaternary deposits are present East European Plain Black Sea - Caspian region associated with major draining numerous surrounding cratonic oro...

Eolian loess deposits contain valuable information about past climate changes and erosion history in dust source regions. In contrast to the extensive investigations of paleoclimatic implications Eurasian loess, continental has received less attention, particularly on global or hemispheric scales. The present study combines citrate-bicarbonate-dithionite (CBD) magnetic mineral extraction proced...