Late Quaternary aeolian sand deposition sustained by fluvial reworking and sediment supply in the Hexi Corridor — An example from northern Chinese drylands

Nottebaum, Veit; Lehmkuhl, Frank; Stauch, Georg; Lu, Huayu; Yi, Shuai

doi:10.1016/j.geomorph.2015.08.014

Cited by 30 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 90 publications

(143 reference statements)

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“…Upwind of the barchan dunes, there are dry lacustrine deposits. Nottebaum et al [8] reported that the sediment in the Hexi Corridor (site A in [8], located approximately 18 km north of dune d in this paper) was deposited at approximately 12 ka, and the local glacial sediment had provided a large source for lacustrine deposition and sand dune formation there. Wang et al [7] reported that the paleolake dried up at 4.5 ka and that the age of the modern diluvial surface layer (0.38 m) was approximately 290 ± 70 years.…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 57%

Migration and Morphology of Asymmetric Barchans in the Central Hexi Corridor of Northwest China

Zhang

Dong

et al. 2018

Geosciences

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Crescent-shaped barchan dunes often display an asymmetric shape, with one limb longer than the other. As shown in previous studies, asymmetric bimodal winds constitute one major cause of barchan asymmetry, but the heterogeneous conditions of sand availability or flux, as well as topographic influences, may be also important. Understanding the morphology and dynamics of asymmetric barchans may have an impact in a broad range of areas, particularly as these dunes may serve as a proxy for planetary wind regimes and soil conditions in extraterrestrial environments. However, in addition to the existing theories and numerical models that explain barchan asymmetry, direct measurements of migration rates and morphologic changes of real asymmetric barchans over a time span of several years would be beneficial. Therefore, here we report such measurements, which we have acquired by investigating asymmetric barchans in the Hexi Corridor, northwest of China. We have found that dune interactions and asymmetric influx conditions are the most important causes of barchan asymmetry in this field. Particle size distributions in the Hexi Corridor display strong variations over different parts of the asymmetric barchans, as well as over different dunes, with gravel particles being incorporated from the substrate as the dunes migrate. Our observations have shown that upwind sediment sources are important for dune formation in the Hexi Corridor, and that interdune interactions affect dune shape in different ways, depending on their offset. The asymmetric barchans in the Hexi Corridor are active, with an average migration rate (MR) between 8 and 53 m year −1 , in spite of the different asymmetric shapes. Our data for dune migration rates can be described well by a scaling of MR = A/(W + W0), where W is the barchan cross-wind width, A ≈ 2835 m 2 s −1 , and W0 ≈ 44 m. A similar scaling fits very well the migration rate as a function of dune along-wind width L, (i.e., MR = B/(L + L0), with B ≈ 1722 m 2 s −1 and L0 ≈ 13 m). Linear relations are also found between both dune widths and the average limb and windward side lengths, thus indicating that the morphometric relations that are predicted from models for steady-state, symmetric crescent-shaped dunes can be applied to different transitional morphologies of interacting, asymmetric barchans.

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Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 57%

Migration and Morphology of Asymmetric Barchans in the Central Hexi Corridor of Northwest China

Zhang

Dong

et al. 2018

Geosciences

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“…Another important factor for the extended period of aeolian accumulation from the late glacial period until the early Holocene as recorded by the OSL ages is the high relief and the locally and temporarily strong fluvial activity (Stauch et al, 2012), which provides large amounts of sediment for the basins of the northeastern TP. The importance of fluvial processes for aeolian processes has been highlighted before (Bullard and Livingstone, 2002; Field et al, 2009; Nottebaum et al, 2015a). The sediment storage in the upper part of the basins presumably emptied during the early Holocene.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 86%

A conceptual model for the interpretation of aeolian sediments from a semiarid high-mountain environment since the late glacial

Stauch

2018

Quat. res.

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Different interpretations of accumulation and preservation of aeolian sediments lead to divergent and sometimes contradictory palaeoclimate reconstructions. Although aeolian transport mainly occurs during dry climate, the preservation of the aeolian sediment is a critical factor in many environments in determining the nature of the aeolian sedimentary archive. Analysis of more than 200 optically stimulated luminescence ages for aeolian sands from Tibet shows four different aeolian phases of accumulation. Strong aeolian activity occurred during the last glacial maximum, but hardly any aeolian sediments are preserved. Consequently, the period with the highest aeolian activity is not recorded in the sedimentary record. A phase of aeolian accumulation occurred in the late glacial and the early Holocene. The duration of deposition for this phase is a consequence of the complex topography and an increase in moisture. This phase was punctuated by exceptionally strong accumulation during the Younger Dryas stade. The mid-Holocene is characterised by weak aeolian accumulation and fluvial erosion caused by greater precipitation during the maximum height of the Asian summer monsoon. Aeolian activity resumed in the late Holocene because of drier conditions. The conceptual model provides an approach that can be applied to other mountain and desert margin regions that have limited sediment availability.

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“…With regard to the formation of a desert environment, some authors suggest that an active aeolian system may be sustained under relatively humid conditions in the case of sufficient sediment supply and the availability of sediment for aeolian transport as a result of, e.g., fluvial activity (Bullard and Livingstone, 2002;Cohen et al, 2010;Al-Masrahy et al, 2015;Halfen et al, 2015;Nottebaum et al, 2015). In this context, climate exerts a fundamental control on the expansion and contraction of sand dune-field margins (e.g., Herries, 1993;Clarke and Rendell, 1998;Al-Masrahy et al, 2015).…”

Section: Formation Of the Hobq Desertmentioning

confidence: 99%

Paleomagnetic chronology and paleoenvironmental records from drill cores from the Hetao Basin and their implications for the formation of the Hobq Desert and the Yellow River

Sun

Wang

et al. 2017

Quaternary Science Reviews

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Reconstructing the Cenozoic environmental history of Hetao Basin, in the northern part of the Ordos Plateau in North China, is important not only for revealing the evolution of the Yellow River, but also for understanding the formation of the Hobq Desert. Here we present the stratigraphic framework of drill core DR01 with length of 2503.18 m, and the results of magnetostratigraphic and ESR dating and multi-proxy analyses of drill core WEDP05 with length of 274.60 m, from the Hetao Basin. The magnetostratigraphic and ESR results indicate that core WEDP05 spans the last ~1.68 Ma. Stratigraphic sequence of core DR01 indicates that the Hetao area was uplifted and eroded during the early Cenozoic, before subsiding to form a sedimentary basin. Subsequently, the basin was a fluvio-lacustrine environment during the Pliocene and then experienced alternating desert and fluvio-lacustrine conditions during the Quaternary. Sedimentary facies and multi environmental-proxy analyses of core WEDP05 indicate that the basin was occupied by a fluvio-lacustrine system during the following intervals: ~1.47-~1.30 Ma, ~1.17-~1.07 Ma, ~0.68-~0.60 Ma and from ~0.47 Ma to the last interglacial; and that a desert environment developed during the lake regression phases of ~1.30-~1.17 Ma, ~1.07-~0.68 Ma and ~0.60-~0.47 Ma. The presence of aeolian sand at the base of core WEDP05 suggests that the origin of the Hobq Desert can be traced back to the early Pleistocene, and resulted from the erosion and transportation of exposed fluvio-lacustrine sediments by near-surface winds associated with the Asian winter monsoon. A large river channel in the Hetao Basin may have existed as early as the Pliocene, which was 3 occupied by the Yellow River when its upper reaches formed by at least ~1.6 Ma. Subsequently, at least since ~1.2 Ma, the Yellow River formed its drainage system around the Hetao Basin and controlled the paleoenvironment evolution of the basin.

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Late Quaternary aeolian sand deposition sustained by fluvial reworking and sediment supply in the Hexi Corridor — An example from northern Chinese drylands

Cited by 30 publications

References 90 publications

Migration and Morphology of Asymmetric Barchans in the Central Hexi Corridor of Northwest China

Migration and Morphology of Asymmetric Barchans in the Central Hexi Corridor of Northwest China

A conceptual model for the interpretation of aeolian sediments from a semiarid high-mountain environment since the late glacial

Paleomagnetic chronology and paleoenvironmental records from drill cores from the Hetao Basin and their implications for the formation of the Hobq Desert and the Yellow River

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