The first near continuous mollusk fossil record from the Qinan Miocene loess-soil se-quence is presented. Results show that mollusk species are abundant in the QA-I section between 22 and 6.2 Ma, and both loess layers and soil layers yield mollusk fossil individuals. All mollusk species are terrestrial and well preserved in the section. Most species are identical to those identified in the Quaternary loess-soil sequence of the Loess Plateau. The thermo-humidiphilous group generally is distributed in soil layers, whereas cold-aridiphilous group can be observed in loess layers. From the Miocene to Quaternary, the occurrence and divergence of new species of Metodontia and Cathaica correspond to the crucial periods of regional and global environmental changes, indicating that mol-lusk species are sensitive to environmental variations. Preliminary study on the QA-I mollusk record indicates that the Qinan Miocene loess-soil sequence may have a similar sedimentary environment to the Quaternary loess-soil sequence of the Loess Plateau.
In this study, grain-size of 507 bulk samples from the QA-I Miocene loess-soil sequence at Qinan were analyzed, and the grain-size features are compared with those of typical Quaternary loess and soil samples, representative lacustrine and fluvial samples. The results indicate that the grain-size distribution pattern of the Miocene loess is essentially similar to that of Quaternary loess, but greatly differs from the lacustrine and fluvial sediments. Loess layers are regularly coarser than soil layers, indicating cyclical climate changes. Median grain-size along the 253.1 m sequence varies from 6 to 13 μm and the >63 μm fraction represents only 5.3% in maximum, 0.9% in average. Long-term grain-size variations are consistent with the loess accumulation rate at Qinan and with the eolian mass accumulation rate in the North Pacific. These features firmly indicate an eolian origin of the studied sequence, and also reveal a coeval changes between the long-term changes of eolian grain-size and continental aridity in the dust source regions.
QIAO Yansong1,3, GUO Zhengtang2,1, HAO Qingzhen1, YIN Qiuzhen1, YUAN Baoyin1 & LIU Tungsheng1 1. Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
The mid-Pleistocene vermiculated red soils (VRS) from Xuancheng (Anhui Province) and Bose (Guangxi) are studied through soil micromor- phological, mineralogical and chemical approaches. The results indicate a polygenetic nature of the VRS, having experienced multiple soil-forming stages. Three main stages have been recognized, attribut- able to distinct climate regimes. They include the formation of the homogeneous matrix of a red soil (stage 1), development of the white veins within the soil profile (stage 2), and formation of juxtaposed textural features (stage 3). The white veins, resulting from iron-depletion in the groundmass of the homo- geneous matrix of a red soil, required abundant rainfall without significant seasonal desiccations. The geographically widely spread VRS south of the Yangtze River in China implies a Mid-Pleistocene extreme East Asian summer monsoon. This climate extreme might be closely linked with the changes in the strength of NADW.
