Provenance of the Late Quaternary Loess Deposit in the Qinghai Lake Region
Zeng Fangming
Abstract：Late Quaternary loess deposit is widely distributed in the Qinghai Lake region and adjacent area.The loess deposit in-dependently recorded the environmental and climatic changes during the late Quaternary in the Qinghai Lake region,northeast-ern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.Nearly all studies are focused on reconstructing the environmental and climatic changes recorded by loess deposit in the Qinghai Lake region.However,up to now,the provenance of the loess deposit in the Qinghai Lake re-gion is still poorly understood.Here we present the elemental concentration of the silicate fraction of the eolian deposit (<75 μm)from the ZYC section in the Qinghai Lake region and LT section at Lintao County on the western Chinese Loess Plateau,loess deposits at Guanjiaoshan Mountain,Chaka town and Wulan County,eolian sands at western and eastern shore of the Qinghai Lake,and fluvial deposits from the Buhahe river and lacustrine deposits at Erlangjian site in the Qinghai Lake re-gion.The results show that:(1 )K2 O/Al2 O 3 (molar ratio)and Zr/Ti,Zr/Nb ratios indicate that the eolian deposits in the Qinghai Lake region and adjacent area can be distinguished clearly from the local deposits represented by river deposits at Buha-he river and lacustrine deposits at Erlangjian in the drainage basin of Qinghai Lake;(2)There is similarity of the elemental ra-tios (K2 O/Al2 O 3 and Zr/Ti,Zr/Nb)between the eolian deposits in the Qinghai Lake region and loess deposits at Lintao Coun-ty.Thus,the eolian deposits in the Qinghai Lake region and Lintao County may have the same source region;(3)Late Quater-nary loess deposit in the Qinghai Lake region is probably sourced from the Qaidam basin.
Keywords：Qinghai Lakeloessprovenanceelementary geochemistry
Publication Date：2016-01-01
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：8( 131-138 )