Molluscan assemblages from the loess of North Central China

Abstract

Although molluscan faunas are the most widespread fossil remains in the Chinese loess. there have been very few attempts to use their potential for climatic reconstruction, or to develop cIimato-stratigraphic schemes. This paper reports assemblages of Mollusca from three sites in the North and South Central parts of the Loess Plateau, and evaluates the uses of molluscan faunas as climatic proxies in the S 1 palaeosol, the Malan Loess and S o palaeosol. The molluscan sequence is compared with the record obtained from pedological and magnetic techniques. The current study shows that major peaks in magnetic susceptibility, thought to be due to pedogenesis under warm, humid conditions, can be matched by levels of high molluscan abundance. The occurrence of a sharp molluscan peak within the Malan Loess, otherwise only indicated by a slight increase in magnetic susceptibility, is held to be due to the existence of a short-lived humid episode and demonstrates the sensitivity of Mollusca as indicators of relatively low magnitude climatic shifts not well indicated by other lines of evidence.