Quartz OSL dating of loess deposits since the late glacial in the Southeast of Caspian Sea
Introduction
Optical dating has been widely applied to terrestrial loess deposits worldwide (Forman and Pierson, 2002; Berger, 2003; Buylaert et al., 2007; Miao et al., 2010; Frechen, 2011; Stevens et al., 2013; Lu et al., 2007; Li et al., 2014); thus, it has become an indispensable part of late Quaternary geochronology. The abundant quartz and feldspar grains in aeolian sediments are an ideal material for optical dating (Roberts, 2008). Quartz contributes the major component of loess deposits (Liu, 1966; Pye, 1987) and it is chemically stable and resistant to weathering. Quartz OSL signals can be easily bleached under natural conditions (light or heat) compared to feldspar IRSL signals. Feldspar has a higher sensitivity and higher saturation level (Huntley and Lamothe, 2001; Reimann and Tsukamoto, 2012), which makes it more suitable for dating older samples. However, the hard-to-bleach feldspar residual signals need to be discussed. Therefore, for young samples within 150 Gy, quartz OSL dating method is more suitable for age establishment.
Loess deposits are precious and irreplaceable in serving as paleoclimatic and environmental archives in both North and South hemispheres (Liu et al., 2007; Carter-Stiglitz et al., 2006; Paleari et al., 2019; Chen et al., 2016). Loess deposited in Chinese Loess Plateau, mid-latitude Asia of North hemispheres, provides paleo-records spanning Quaternary or even up to Cenozoic era in connection with results of pelagic sediments mostly from distant ocean and ice cores from either high latitudes or high mountains (Guo et al., 2002; Porter et al., 2019). Not only that, loess deposits could also be employed as high resolution sequences ranging from Holocene, late glacial to Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) during past decades in e.g. Chinese Loess Plateau, central Asia (Wang et al., 2014; Li et al., 2016; Chen et al., 2016), which significantly enriched understandings of regional climatic evolutions; however, compared to extensively used OSL dating applications in the CLP, which have provided convinced chronological frames of high-resolution (e.g., Lu et al., 2006; Buylaert et al., 2007; Lu et al., 2007; Stevens et al., 2008; Sun et al., 2012), the development of the dating on loess deposits of westerly-dominated arid central Asia commenced relatively late and are reported limitedly. Among the limited amount of paleoclimatic researches conducted in arid central Asia, OSL dating has been mainly applied to loess deposits of the Tianshan Mountains; e.g., in the eastern (Li et al., 2016) and central (Machalett et al., 2006; Chongyi et al., 2012; Yang et al., 2014; Song et al., 2015; Kang et al., 2015) parts. For further westward regions, K-feldspar IRSL and pIRIR have been mainly applied to loess deposits in the western Pamirs and the northern Iran Plateau (Frechen and Dodonov, 1998; Frechen et al., 2009; Karimi et al., 2011; Lauer et al., 2017a, b). Notably, however, studies of the chronology of continuous loess deposits since the late glacial are rarely reported likewise, especially in the vast mid-latitude Eurasia transitional region, between Balkans to the west and Pamirs to the east. This may reflect the view that Holocene strata are heavily eroded or bioturbated in these areas (Frechen and Dodonov, 1998; Frechen et al., 2009; Karimi et al., 2011; Lauer et al., 2017a, b), which makes the Holocene loess preserved in situ even rare and precious in terms of potential valuable paleoclimatic recording.
In the present study, an OSL-based chronology was developed for loess deposits since the late glacial developed close to center of hilly Iranian Loess Plateau in the southeast of Caspian Sea. The OSL characteristics and their reliability were investigated in detail and used to establish a robust regional chronological framework.
Section snippets
Study area and sampling
The loess deposits in northern Iranian Plateau are distributed in the southeast of the Caspian Sea and the northern foothills of the Alborz Mountains, and are located less than 500 m above sea level (Lateef, 1988; Kehl et al., 2005). The thickness of the loess ranges from ~12 m to more than 60 m, and these deposits, comprising the so-called Iranian ‘Loess Plateau’ are a valuable climatic archive (Frechen et al., 2009; Karimi et al., 2011; Vlaminck et al., 2016; Lauer et al., 2017a), based on
Sample pretreatment
In a subdued red light, both ends of each sample (2–3 cm) were removed from the sampling tube, dried at room temperature, ground in an agate mortar and used for measurements of water content and the dose rate. The remaining unexposed material was used for equivalent dose (De) determination. The pretreatment procedure consisted of treatment with HCl and H2O2 to remove carbonates and organic material, respectively, followed by particle-size separation using wet sieving. The 63–90 μm grains were
Preheat plateau and dose recovery test
To eliminate the adverse effects of the preheating temperature dose on samples, a preheat plateau test was conducted on sample YBD-120. For single-aliquot quartz grains, the preheating could cause thermal transfer and resulting sensitivity changes (Wintle and Murray, 1998). The dependence of quartz grains to preheat temperature can result in the significant deviation of the equivalent dose (De) value and the results can only be accepted if the De dose not vary too much within an alternative
High resolution OSL dating established on loess deposits since the late glacial in Caspian region
Last glacial-Holocene period is the most related geological periods which has close relationship with human civilization (Mayewski, 2004; Glikson, 2014) and its paleoclimate pattern has profound influence on modern climate. Previous research on loess studies in the southeast of the Caspian Sea were mainly focused on the long-orbital scale research (Lateef, 1988; Frechen et al., 2009; Kehl, 2009; Vlaminck et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2016; Lauer et al., 2017a, b), while critical OSL chronological
Conclusions
Coase-grained quartz OSL dating has been applied to a loess section in northern slope of the Alborz Mountains and the southeast of the Caspian Sea. The results of a plateau and dose recovery test reveal that the lower preheat is suitable for loess equivalent dose determination in the area. In addition, the SAR-OSL is an appropriate methodology for dating loess deposited in situ since the late glacial, via which a critical chronological frame has been established for further past climatic and
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2018YFA0606401), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41402145), and the second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (STEP) (Grant 2019QZKK0602).
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2021, Earth-Science ReviewsCitation Excerpt :Beside the proximity of source areas (e.g. large streams in Europe; e.g. Jipa, 2014) also a reduced vegetation cover leads to the formation of sandy loess deposits and sand formation especially at the desert margins of the world (e.g. Central Asian deserts, deserts in China). This transition towards the desert margin loess can be found e.g. in eastern and southeastern Europe towards Central Asia, e.g. at the Sea of Azov (Chen et al., 2020) and the Caspian Lowlands (Wei et al., 2020). Moreover, a general and continuous contribution of long range transported dust input stemming from desert margins in the Caspian Lowlands and western Central Asia is likely for southeastern European and western Central Asian Holocene and older interglacial soils (Constantin et al., 2019; Jordanova and Jordanova, 2020; Tecsa et al., 2020; Zhang et al., 2020).
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