Elemental tracers for Chinese source dust

摘要

The mass-particle size distributions of 10 dust-carrying elements in aerosol particles were determined for 12 sites in desert regions of northern China. The desert dust is proved to be of origin of eolian loess deposited on the Loess Plateau. Their transport to the loess was mainly attributable to the non-dust storm processes under the interglacial climate condition. The impact of dust storm on the accumulation of the loess increased in the glacial stage. On the basis of the signatures of 4 dust elements (Al, Fe, Mg and Sc), Chinese dust is believed to have 3 major desert sources (northwestern deserts, northern high dust deserts and northern low dust deserts). With a chemical element balance model, an elemental tracer system is established to proportion the export of China-source dust.