Chinese Loess and Paleomonsoon Change

As an unique terrestrial archive of past climate change, Chinese loess-paleosole sequences have been intensively investigated to reconstruct East Asian monsoon variabilities on tectonic, orbital, and millennial timescales. Regionally, mulitple loess proxies have been used to infer the stepwise uplift of the Tibetan Plateau, distinctive glaical-interglacial fluctuations of the East Asian summer and winter monsoon intensity, paleoprecipitation, and Asian dust activities. Globally, multiple East Asian monsoon variabilities are closely linked to global ice volume change, interactions between the northern-to-southern Hemisphere and high-to-low latitude processes. Paleoclimate reconstruction based on the loess-peleosol sequences can be well correlated with proxy records from marine sediments, ice cores, and stalagmites. Therefore, Chinese loess is of great significance for understanding the dynamic mechanisms of monsoon climate from regional to global scales. In addition, we briefly introduce the Quaternary stratigraphy, chronology, and climate records of the classic Luochuan loess section, with a focus on the Late Pleistocene.