Aeolian origin of the red earth in southeast China

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Abstract
A clay‐like deposit known as ‘red earth’ is widely distributed over the terraces and high lands of the Yangtze River valley in southeast China. Its typical pedo‐stratigraphical features have attracted the interest of pedologists and geologists for many years, although its origin is still debated. Here we report an analyses of the grain‐size distributions, rare‐earth element (REE) patterns and upper continental crust (UCC)‐normalised major elemental composition of the red earth and compare them with those of the loess and other aeolian deposits in northern China. The results show that the red earth in southeast China has two or three end‐member grain‐size distributions, similar to the sedimentary characteristics and geochemical composition of aeolian deposits found in northern China. Together with other evidence from field observations, these results suggest that the red earth is probably of aeolian origin. On the basis of these data, we suggest that thick aeolian dusts were also deposited in the wet subtropics and that the effect of the winter monsoonal winds upon the dust transport in eastern China was more important than previously believed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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