New insights into dating the sediment sequence within a landslide-dammed reservoir on the Chinese Loess Plateau

Abstract

The deposition couplets within the check dams and landslide-dammed reservoirs on the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) document the processes and histories of watershed soil erosion, transportation and deposition, related to floods, eco-environment and land use changes, and human activities. Previously, dating the couplets was dominantly dependent on multiple intercomparisons among specific sediment yields of visible couplets, 137Cs activities distributions and erosive rainfall events by meteorological records. However, inter-annual division of the deposition couplets and dating historical sequence beyond meteorological records in the landslide-dammed reservoir are little known. Based on high-resolution XRF core scanning on a 22.75 m sediment sequence in Jingbian (JB) landslide-dammed reservoir on the central hilly-gully area of the CLP, and cross checking of multiple dating methods, this study tried to propose a new method to build the accurate chronology sequence based on inter-annual division by annual freeze-thaw layer and to further date the sediment without rainfall records. The results showed that a total of 126 deposition couplets and 78 annual freeze-thaw layers were identified in the JB sequence. Multimethod cross-dating, including 137Cs activities, annual freeze-thaw layers, couplet specific sediment yield and modern rainfall records, was the most accurate method of dating the JB sediment sequences since 1960s with detail meteorological records. Furthermore, the correspondence between annual freeze-thaw layers and the historical grades of flood index from literature was the valid method to date the JB historical sequences without rainfall records. Consequently, the JB sequence was deposited during the period between 1855 and 2014. High-resolution dating of the JB sequence provides the chronology for recovering natural and anthropogenic information on the central hilly-gully area of CLP since 1850s. The proposed methods will also shed new light on the accurate dating of the sediment sequences within other check dams and landslide-dammed reservoirs on the central and northern CLP.