Based on the tree ring width index of Pinus tabulaeformis, precipitation in the last 140 years was recon-structed at south margin of the Tengger Desert. The results indicated that there were obvious fluctuations of dry-wet changes in precipitation: two wet periods occurred during 1868―1876 and 1932―1939, and two dry periods during 1877―1894 and 1924―1932, however, the years 1887 and 1888 were a little wet. There were small changes in precipita-tion during 1895―1923 and 1940―2000. As compared to the average, the maximum increasing range of precipitation amounted to 56% during the wet periods, and 42% during the dry periods. And the range of variability of precipitation exceeded 30% in 19 years. There was no obvious consistent drying or wetting trend in the last 140 years. But since 1940 fluctuating scope of precipitation tended to be smaller, while the frequency of the fluctuation tended to be larger. Power spectrum analyses suggested that precipitation of south mar-gin of the Tengger Desert had significant periodicities of 2.46―2.64 a and quasi periodicity of 11.67 a.
Quaternary aeolian environment researches were mainly conducted by analyzing the information carriers, extracting valuable evidences about aeolian environment changes, so to presume and reconstruct paleoenvironments. This paper formulated progress in Quaternary aeolian environment research using dune-morphological records, sedimentological records and bio-fossils records, as well as advances about chronology; presented that people should pay more attention to further synthetic study of multi-types of records including dune morphology, size, formation time, sediment supply, and their relations with wind regime in future, especially the research on dating method.
Based on investigations of the Zhongwei Nanshan aeolian section situated in the southeastern margin of Tengger Desert, carbon-14 and TL (thermoluminescence) dating results and paleoclimatic proxies such as magnetic susceptibility and grain size, we inferred that the northwestern margin of East Asian monsoon region experienced abrupt climatic changes during the last deglaciation. Six oscillation events were identified: Oldest Dryas, Bolling, Older Dryas, Allerod, Intra-Allerod Cold Period (IACP) and Younger Dryas (YD). The summer monsoon was weaker during Oldest Dryas and Younger Dryas when the winter monsoon was stronger. However, during the B/A (Bolling/Allerod) period, the summer monsoon strengthened, reflected by magnetic susceptibility, when the winter monsoon also became strong, which is different from the paleoclimatic pattern established in the East Asian monsoon region. Furthermore, the summer monsoon was nearly in phase with the climate changes inferred from the oxygen isotopic records of Greenland ice cores. It could be speculated that the variations of the sea ice cover in the high latitudes of the North Hemisphere affected the high pressure of Asian continent and the changes of the winter monsoon inland. On the other hand, the sea ice cover variations might have indirectly caused the occurrence of ENSO events that has tightly been related to the summer monsoon in northwest margin of East Asian monsoon region.
