Holocene paleosols and colluvial sediments in Northeast Tibet (Qinghai Province, China): Properties, dating and paleoenvironmental implications

Effectiveness of Exclosures on Restoration of Degraded Alpine Meadow in the Eastern Tibetan Plateau

“…Most valleys are backfilled by several meters of thick loess deposits and colluvial sediments (Kaiser et al, 2007). According to the Chinese Soil Taxonomy Research Group (1995) the soil of the study area was classified as Mat Cry-gelic Cambisol.…”

Holocene aeolian mantles and inter-bedded paleosols on the southern Tibetan Plateau

“…BP occur (Table 1). In the northeastern part of the TP, the loess accumulation in the basins is up to several meters and the paleoclimatic record of these aeolian sediments dates into the late Quaternary, but most accumulation started since the late Glacial period (Lehmkuhl, 1995(Lehmkuhl, , 1997Kaiser et al, 2007;Liu et al, 2012;Stauch et al, 2012;Yu and Lai, 2012;Liu et al, 2013;Qiang et al, 2013;Lehmkuhl et al, 2014).…”

“…They found different paleosols with ages between 11.8 and 2.9 ka BP and a humidity peak in the early Holocene. In the region between the eastern Qaidam depression, Qinghai Lake and the Qilian Shan, Kaiser et al (2007) examined soil sections in elevations between 3200 and 3700 m asl which consisted of aeolian and colluvial silts and loams with inter-bedded paleosols. Radiocarbon dating from the incorporated charcoal provided ages between 10,100 and 3800 cal BP.…”

Land use change decreases soil carbon stocks in Tibetan grasslands

“…Alpine steppes cover an area of 800,000 km 2 in the northwest of the Tibetan Plateau (Zhang 1988;Miehe et al 2011), and Kobresia pastures cover an area of 450,000 km 2 in the southeast (Miehe et al 2008). Those Kobresia pastures are partly secondary grasslands after forests had been cleared since the mid-Holocene (Kaiser et al 2007;Miehe et al 2009Miehe et al , 2014. About 7.4 Pg C is estimated to be stored in the upper 1 m of Tibetan grasslands (Yang et al 2008).…”