Loess Records - Mineral Dust: A Key Player in the Earth System - page 412

a latitudinal band at about latitude 50 ı N, between the continental ice sheets to
the north and the Alpine glaciers in the south. Between longitudes 15 ı and 25 ı
east, the thickest loess sequences are mostly located south of the Carpathian arch.
Finally, eastward from 25 ı east, the loess deposits are distributed in a broader
domain, corresponding to the wide Ukrainian and Russian plains. The loess deposits
show a distribution in close proximity with the major European rivers such as the
Seine, the Somme, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Dnieper.
Focusing on the past 40 ka, the Nussloch loess section, south of Heidelberg,

Germany, shows the most detailed and expanded record of this time interval
(Fig. 16.7 ). The Nussloch quarry is located at N49 ı 19 0 and E8 ı 43 0 and is situated
on the Odenwald Plateau, above the Rhine Valley (Antoine et al. 2001 ). The loess
accumulated through elongated structures described as greda, the main dunelike
morphology being built during the last glacial period, above the Arctic brown
paleosol named Lohne Boden and dated between 34 ka and 40 ka by luminescence
(Rousseau et al. 2007a , b ).
The stratigraphy of the last glacial period at Nussloch shows that there are a
minimum of eight tundra gley paleosols (Antoine et al. 2009a , b ). The alternation of
loess and tundra gley paleosols is interpreted as a series of loess-paleosol doublets
(Rousseau et al. 2002 ), and such stratigraphic successions are observed from one
dunelike landform to another (Antoine et al. 2009a , b ; Rousseau et al. 2007a , b ). The
use of a combination of 14 C (Hatté et al. 1999 ) and luminescence (Lang et al. 2003 )
dating techniques demonstrates that the last glacial period interval, corresponding
to the upper 13 m of the 18 m-thick last climate cycle sequence, lasted between

15 ka. Thus, the sequence at Nussloch shows a very high sedimentation
rate over the last glacial period, although the tundra gley paleosols show that it
was episodic. This succession of loess-paleosol doublets was correlated with the
Greenland interstadial-stadial succession from DO events 8-2.
The upper Pleistocene record preserved in the Stayky (N50 ı 05.65 0 ,E30 ı 53.92 0 )
loess sequence, located 1,800 km westward from Nussloch, south of Kyiv, along the
Dnieper River in Ukraine, shows a similar pattern, a succession of loess-paleosol
doublets, corresponding to the same time interval (Fig. 16.7 ), with alternating
dry-cold and wet-cool intervals (Rousseau et al. 2011 ). Moisture conditions are
nevertheless lower than in Nussloch, as the paleosols are mostly expressed as
embryonic soils, with only two tundra gleys being identified. Nevertheless, even
though Nussloch and Stayky are distant from one another, grain size variations show
similarities at both localities.

40 and

Fig. 16.3 ( a ) Distribution of loess in Europe (Redrawn in simplified form from Haase et al.
( 2007 )). Also shown are major rivers ( solid blue lines ) and the approximate extent of the
Scandinavian ice sheet ( light purple ) during the last glacial period ( thick dashed line ) (Simplified
from Flint ( 1971 )). CR Czech Republic, H Hungary. ( b ) Distribution of loess in Asia (Compiled
from Velichko et al. ( 1984 , 2006 ), Liu ( 1985 ), Dodonov ( 2007 ), and Frechen et al. ( 2009a )). Note:
loess is also reported for Japan (Watanuki et al. 2005 ; Matsu'ura et al. 2011 ), but distribution maps
are not shown in those reports. Ice sheet extents during the last glacial period ( light purple )are
approximate (Redrawn from Flint ( 1971 ))