Magnetic properties of Jiaxian red clay sequences from northern Chinese Loess Plateau and its paleoclimatic significance

Detailed rock magnetism investigation of the Jiaxian red clay sequences indicated that there are common magnetic mineralogy properties in red clay and loess-paleosol sequences from the Chinese Loess Plateau as well as the marked properties of themselves, magnetic minerals mainly with magnetite, maghemite, hematite, and possibly limonite/goethite contributing to the magnetic behavior. Meanwhile, it is found that the strong paleosol in red clay sequences has a lower coercivity and higher content of ultra-fine ferrimagnetic grains than that of the weak paleosol, which is similar to loess and paleosol in upper Wucheng Loess sequences, and indicates that humid conditions and relatively strong pedogenesis play a significant role in the increase of ultra-fine magnetic minerals and transformation of the magnetic minerals. This suggests that, like Quaternary loess-paleosols, the change of characteristics of paleoclimatic conditions of the late Tertiary red clay deposits is fluctuant. In addition, the results of magnetic hysteresis properties show that the applied saturated field for samples from the Jiaxian red clay sequences is higher than that of the samples from eastern and southern Chinese Loess Plateau. It is obviously shown that there exist more hard magnetic minerals and relatively weak biochemical processes in the Jiaxian red clay sequences on northern Chinese Loess Plateau. We conclude that the paleoclimatic environment is different between northern and eastern/southern Chinese Loess Plateau, and it should be more arid in northern Chinese Loess Plateau. Copyright by Science in China Press 2005.