Late Pleistocene aeolian activity in Haitan Island,Southeast China: Insights from optically stimulated luminescence dating of coastal dunes on marine terraces

The 'Old Red Sand' is a type of semicemented medium-fine sandy sediment that is red (10R4/8) or brown red (2.5YR4/8) in colour and is found in late Quaternary deposits. The sediments have distinctive characteristics and are a critical archive for understanding climatic changes in the coastal areas of East Asia. The ages of the late Quaternary aeolian sand dunes from Haitan Island in the coastal area of South China are still in debate. In this study, three sets of marine terraces were identified in the northern region of Haitan Island. Aeolian dune sands are well preserved on the top of these terraces. Quartz Optically Stimulated Luminescence dating and the distribution of the formation ages demonstrated that the palaeo-dunes are deposits from the middle-late period of the Late Pleistocene (Q ₃ ^2-3 ). The period may be divided into three stages, 100–90 ka, 70–60 ka, and 40–20 ka, in which the palaeo-dunes of the first two stages are more widespread and were formed separately during a low-sea level period of the Marine Isotope Stages 5b and 4. Several depositional palaeo-flood event records were preserved during the last stage due to the increasing gradient of mountain gullies formed during the Last Glacial Maximum.