Are Chinese loess deposits essentially continuous?

We conducted a paleomagnetic examination of the last glacial loess of three representative profiles along an east-west transect in the central Loess Plateau in order to assess the continuity of Chinese loess. The results show that the Xifeng and Luochuan profiles record the Laschamp geomagnetic excursion but with different morphologies. Together with the published results from Weinan, southern plateau, our results suggest that sedimentation of the last glacial loess in the central-southern plateau was continuous at the time scale equivalent to the duration of the Laschamp excursion (similar to 2 kyr), but probably episodic at finer time scales (< 2 kyr). No geomagnetic excursion was found at the Yichuan profile near the Yellow River valley, where loess accumulation may be strongly affected by local environmental changes and thus may have been discontinuous. Both site location and time scale therefore need to be considered when considering continuity of Chinese loess.