Responses of landform development to tectonic movements and climate change during Quaternary in Fenhe drainage basin

Abstract

Tectonic movements and climate changes are two main controllers on the development of landform. In order to reconstruct the history of the evolution of the landform in the Fenhe drainage basin during middle-late Quaternary comprehensively, this paper has provided a variety of geomorphological and geologic evidences to discuss how tectonic movements and climate changes worked together to influence the landform processes. According to the features of the lacustrine and alluvial terraces in this drainage basin, it is deduced that it was the three tectonic uplifts that resulted in the three great lake-regressions with an extent of about 40–60 m and the formation of the three lacustrine terraces. The times when the tectonic uplifts took place are 0.76 MaBP, 0.55 MaBP and 0.13 MaBP respectively, synchronous with the formation of paleosol units S8, S5 and S1 respectively. During the intervals between two tectonic uplifts when tectonic movement was very weak, climate changes played a major role in the evolution of the paleolakes and caused frequent fluctuations of lake levels. The changes of the features of lacustrine sediment in the grabens show the extent of such fluctuations of lake level is about 2–3 m.