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Distribution of n-alkanes in Miocene loess in Qinan, western Chinese Loess Plateau, and its palaeoenvironmental implications

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Abstract

Neogene eolian successions are one of the most important terrestrial palaeoenvironmental archives in East Asia. However, they have received far less attention than Quaternary loess deposits, especially in the case of lipid biomarker analysis. In order to obtain a better insight into the early-middle Miocene palaeoenvironment, we conducted a study of n-alkane biomarkers from sediments of the QA-I section (Qinan) in the western Chinese Loess Plateau, and compared the results with those of previous n-alkane analyses of eolian and aquatic sediments of varying age. Our principal results are as follows: (1) All QA-I samples contain n-alkanes ranging from C14 to C35, among which the relative content of short-chain n-alkanes (C14–C20) from microorganisms is significantly greater than that of long-chain n-alkanes (C26–C35) from the waxes of terrestrial higher plants; the main peak is at C16–C18. All samples have a relatively lower abundance of medium-chain n-alkanes (C21–C25) than that of long- and short-chain n-alkanes, similar to strongly weathered palaeosols in Quaternary loess and Late Miocene-Pliocene Hipparion Red-Earth; however, this distribution is significantly different from that in weakly-weathered loess of Quaternary loess and Late Miocene-Pliocene Hipparion Red-Earth, as well as from aquatic sediments. (2) Despite some odd-over-even carbon predominance of long-chain n-alkanes in the QA-I samples, the carbon preference index (CPI) values are significantly lower than those of most of the weakly-weathered sediments. Our results show that strong weathering and microbial processes have significantly altered the n-alkanes in the Miocene eolian deposits in Qinan, and led to a significant oxidation and degradation of long-chain n-alkanes and the predominance of short-chain n-alkanes from bacteria. Therefore, the contribution of microorganism to total organic carbon (TOC) and its resulting in carbon isotopic composition should be carefully assessed in future studies.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Associate Professor **anyu Huang for his advice regarding the experiments and data analysis, two anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions, and Professor Jan Bloemendal (at University of Liverpool of UK) for language editing. This study was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41430531, 41202249 & 41125011) and the China Geological Survey (Grant No. 1212011121261).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Cenozoic Geology and Environment, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bei**g, 100029, China

    JiaHeng Shen, HaiBin Wu, Chun**a Zhang & ZhengTang Guo

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bei**g, 100049, China

    JiaHeng Shen, HaiBin Wu & ZhengTang Guo

  3. State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, School of Earth Sciences, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, China

    GuoQiao **ao & Zhi**ang Wang

  4. National Research Center of Geoanalysis, Bei**g, 100037, China

    Qing Sun

  5. Chinese Academy of Sciences Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Bei**g, 100101, China

    Chun**a Zhang & ZhengTang Guo

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  1. JiaHeng Shen
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Shen, J., **ao, G., Wang, Z. et al. Distribution of n-alkanes in Miocene loess in Qinan, western Chinese Loess Plateau, and its palaeoenvironmental implications. Sci. China Earth Sci. 60, 921–928 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-016-9013-6

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