Comment on Mudflat/distal fan and shallow lake sedimentation (upper Vallesian-Turolian) in the Tianshui Basin, Central China: Evidence against the late Miocene eolian loess by A.M. Alonso-Zarza, Z. Zhao, C.H. Song, J.J. Li, J. Zhang, A. Martin-Perez, R. Martin-Garcia, X.X. Wang, Y. Zhang and M.H. Zhang [Sedimentary Geology 222 (2009) 42-51]

Alonso-Zarza et al. (2009) argued that the Miocene sedimentary sequence near Qinan (QA-!) (Guo et al., 2002), north to Tianshui in Central China, represents mudflat/distal fan and shallow lake sediments. Here we show that they (1) did not take into account extensive observational evidence supporting an eolian origin; (2) erroneously correlated deposits of different origins and small lateral extent occurring in different geomorphic units: (3) inferred a common origin for distal fans in the Tianshui and Qinan regions despite contrasting tectonic and geomorphic conditions: and (4) in some cases misinterpreted features typical of eolian deposits. Accordingly, their study is not a sufficient basis for challenging earlier interpretations of Asian paleoclimates. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.