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Loess Records

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Mineral Dust

Abstract

Loess is aeolian sediment, dominated by silt-sized particles, that is identifiable in the field as a distinct sedimentary body. It covers a significant portion of the land surface of the Earth and as such constitutes one of the most important archives of long-term dust deposition. Large tracts of loess cover Europe, Asia, South America, and North America, and smaller loess bodies are found covering parts of Africa, the Middle East, New Zealand, and Australia. Loess thickness, particle size, and carbonate content decrease downwind from sources, trends that are powerful tools for reconstructing paleowinds. Many loess sections consist of relatively thick deposits of mostly unaltered sediment with intercalated paleosols. Paleosols represent periods of landscape stability when loess deposition ceased or at least slowed significantly. Studies from several continents show that loess in most regions was deposited during glacial periods and paleosols formed during interglacial and interstadial periods.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. U.S. Geological Survey, Federal Center, MS 980, Box 25046, Denver, CO, 80225, USA

    Daniel R. Muhs

  2. Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Stephen R. Cattle

  3. Geological Survey of Israel, 30 Malkhe Israel St., Jerusalem, 95501, Israel

    Onn Crouvi

  4. Ecole Normale Supérieure, Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique, UMR CNRS-ENS 8539 & CERES-ERTI, 24 rue Lhomond, 75231, Paris Cedex 5, France

    Denis-Didier Rousseau

  5. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, 10964, USA

    Denis-Didier Rousseau

  6. Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Jimin Sun

  7. Instituto de Ciencias de la Tierra y Ambientales de la Pampa (INCITAP), Avenida Uruguay 151, 6300, Santa Rosa La Pampa, Argentina

    Marcelo A. Zárate

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  1. Daniel R. Muhs
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  2. Stephen R. Cattle
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  3. Onn Crouvi
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  4. Denis-Didier Rousseau
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  5. Jimin Sun
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  6. Marcelo A. Zárate
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Correspondence to Daniel R. Muhs .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research, University of Leeds, School of Earth & Environment, Leeds, UK, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Peter Knippertz

  2. MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, Department of Marine Sedimentology, University of Bremen, NIOZ – Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Department of Marine Geology and Chemical Oceanography, Texel, The Netherlands, Bremen, Germany

    Jan-Berend W. Stuut

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Muhs, D.R., Cattle, S.R., Crouvi, O., Rousseau, DD., Sun, J., Zárate, M.A. (2014). Loess Records. In: Knippertz, P., Stuut, JB. (eds) Mineral Dust. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8978-3_16

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