Progress in the study of paleoclimate reconstruction from speleothem uranium and its isotope
CHEN Qiong
CHEN Lin
HUANG Jia-yi
LIU Shu-hua
YANG Liang
MI Xiao-jian
ZHOU Hou-yun
Abstract：Uranium content and its isotope initial 234 U/238 U[(234 U/238 U)0 ]preserved in speleothems have a considerable potential to record the changes of the paleoclimate and paleoenvironment.Here we review the studies on these elements and their climate implications.Most previous work suggested that the uranium concentration and (234 U/238 U)0 could indicate the changes of the soil humidity and effective precipitation. However,some researchers hold different viewpoints on this subject.Nevertheless,all these researches a-gree that U concentration and its isotope should be important alternative indexes for reconstructing paleocli-mate and paleoenvironment.In the future,in addition to soil environments and processes,the investigations should be focused on relative contribution of different sources of U and the relationship between U and other trace elementals,which may play an important role in the study of atmospheric dust activity,winter mon-soon variations,changes of biomass on the surface,and so on in East Asia.
Keywords：speleothemuranium concentration(234 U/238 U)0paleoclimate and paleoenvironment
Publication Date：2015-01-01
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：7( 479-485 )