Mangshan Loess in Central China and the Paleomonsoon Variationssince the Last Interglaciation

Abstract The Mangshan Yuan is a loess platform on the southern bank of the Yellow River, which is located in northwestern Zhengzhou of Henan Province, China. The typical Zhaoxiayu section of the Mangshan Yuan preserves stratigraphical loess units above S₁₀ with a total thickness of 172.1 m, which includes 15.7 m of the last interglacial paleosol S₁, 77.3 m of the last glacial loess L₁ that consist of 41.6 m of the late stade L₁LL₁, 13.2 m of the interstade L₁SS₁ and 22.5 m of the early stade L₁LL₂. Based on the age marking points by correlating magnetic susceptibility of the section with the SPECMAP curve, the timescale of the section was constructed, and the average accumulation rate and the resolution of each loess strata over the S₂ were subsequently calculated using the susceptibility age model. The results indicate that strata units developed in the glacial, interglacial stages, stadial and interstadial show substantial differences in grain size, average accumulation rate and time resolution ub the Zhaoxiayu section. Specifically, the average accumulation rate of the loess L₁LL₁ is 3.45 mm/a, whereas that of paleosol S₁ is only 0.28 mm/a. Based on the high‐resolution records of magnetic susceptibility and >45 μm fraction percentage of the loess‐paleosol, the summer and winter monsoon variations as well as their interrelations since the last interglaciation have been discussed, which were correlated with the SPECMAP and the GRIP climate records.