干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Dating pollen concentrated from eolian sediments provides a new way to establish a chronological framework on the Loess Plateau of China. We show that pollen deposited simultaneously with sediment in a stable environment can provide reliable ages. We suggest that the reliability of pollen dating can be evaluated by comparison with wood cellulose or charcoal ages from the same stratigraphic level. Dating pollen concentrates from the various profiles indicates paleomonsoon precipitation variability at the loess/desert transitional belt from the late Pleistocene to the early Holocene.