Magnetic susceptibility parameters as proxies for desert sediment provenance

Provenance of Aeolian Sediments in the Ordos Deserts and Its Implication for Weathering, Sedimentary Processes

“…Although the contribution of the Altay Mountains and the Mongolian Gobi is relatively small, it is one of the significant sources for the BJD (Hu and Yang, 2016). Therefore, we can conclude that the Alxa Deserts may also be a potential source of other areas of the Mu Us, which is supported by previous studies (Zhang et al, 2016;Sun et al, 2018;Hällberg et al, 2020).…”

“…The latest geochemical data has demonstrated that Qilian Mountains of the NTP contributes more to the BJD than the AP, but this does not exclude that the AP is not the provenance area of the BJD (Hu and Yang, 2016), since Che and Li (2013) proposed that the zircons in the Alxa arid lands are mixture of those from NTP and Gobi Altay Mountains, and are better matched with zircons from the CLP. In addition, Liu et al (2017) suggested that Alxa arid lands and the Mu Us desert were the dominant dust sources of the CLP during interglacial and interstadial warm stages, and this has been confirmed by additional studies (Sun et al, 2018;Zhang et al, 2018;Fan et al, 2019;Hällberg et al, 2020). As a consequence, our findings that the AP may be a potential source for the Mu Us is credible.…”

“…Zhu et al (1980) and Wang (2013) also confirmed such conclusion through evidence from sedimentology and geomorphology. In recent years, some studies have confirmed multiple sources areas of the Mu Us by using diverse technologies, which are either from local sediments (Stevens et al, 2013;Liu and Yang, 2018;Wang et al, 2019) or from exterior sediments (Nie et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2016;Hällberg et al, 2020), or both (Rao et al, 2011a;Rao et al, 2011b). The bedrocks of Cretaceous and Jurassic and lacustrine landforms are widely distributed in the central and western parts of the Mu Us (Wen et al, 2018), which may provide substantial detrital sediments for local aeolian activities (Zhu et al, 1980).…”

“…However, aeolian landforms are differentiated between them, i.e., the Mu Us is characterized by fixed and semi-fixed dunes, whereas active dunes are dominant in the Hobq Desert. In recent years, diverse techniques have been employed to explore the provenance of aeolian sands in the Mu Us, including geochemical indices (Rao et al, 2011b;Rao et al, 2014;Liu and Yang, 2018), zircon U-Pb, heavy mineral analysis, framework petrography (Stevens et al, 2013;Nie et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2016;Wang et al, 2019;Sun et al, 2020), quartz crystallinity and magnetic susceptibility (Sun et al, 2013;Hällberg et al, 2020). Detailed results from the above provenance analyses have demonstrated that there exist distinct provenance differences between the western and eastern regions of the Mu Us, and diverse opinions about the region's provenance remain.…”

Climatic Forcing of Plio‐Pleistocene Formation of the Modern Limpopo River, South Africa

“…Different sediment source regions are expected to yield different combinations and concentrations of magnetic minerals. These differences can result in different magnetic properties in sediments derived from different source regions, which reflect the distribution of source rocks in different catchments (Hällberg et al., 2020; Maher, 2011). The exposed basement of the Limpopo upper to middle reaches is mainly gneissic with subordinate mafic complexes and volcanic rocks, whereas sedimentary strata are dominant in the lower reaches (Schüürman et al., 2019).…”