| Abstract: | Large sandy deserts in middle latitude of northwestern China were studied on salt variations in modern and ancient aeolian sediments, aiming to explore their hydrological indications at the present and past. Globally, sulphate is rich in arid to semi-arid deserts, including the aeolian loess sediments in China and soils in low-latitude deserts, but is less common in the aeolian sediments from the mid-latitude deserts in this study. The compositional differences between aeolian salts and local natural waters is evident, indicating the chemistry of aeolian salts and the associated parent brines may be significantly different than that predicted for hydrologically closed systems. The formation of aeolian salts in the studied deserts is strongly controlled by earth surface processes in a large scale but not in a local scale. Vertical changes in facies and salinities are abrupt in the studied palaeo-aeolian sediment samples, which were interbedded by lacustrine/fluvial sediments with OSL and 14C ages ranging between 40 and 2 ka BP, reflecting rapid high-amplitude changes in hydrological settings during late Pleistocene to later Holocene in these ancient playa systems. A great difference in salt composition between aeolian and lacustrine sediments suggests that the inorganic salt is a latent geoproxy in revealing local hydrological variations and climate change in the desert areas. But the environmental indications could be amphibolous for the sedimentary sequences with dual/multiple depositional end-members; under this situation an increase in sequence salinity does not always represent an enhanced environmental aridity. Ancient playas are arid or humid at the same time based on several sporadic records is not a valid approach to correlation of salt deposits in adjacent saline playa basin in the studied areas. Effects of earth surface processes including erosion, deposition and other processes on sediment properties will bias the hydrological implications of sediment salinity. |
