The widely distributed thick gravel deposits along the rim of the Tibetan Plateau have been long thought to be the product of rapid tectonic uplift of the plateau. However, this has been challenged by recent works that suggest these thick gravels may be the result of climate change. In this paper we carried out a detailed field measurement of gravel grain sizes from the Jiuquan and Gobi Gravel Beds in the top of the Laojunmiao section in the Jiuxi Basin in the northern margin of Qilian Mts. (northern Tibetan Plateau). The results suggest that the grain sizes of the Jiuquan and Gobi Gravel Beds over the last 0.8 Ma are characterized by nine coarse-fine cycles having strong 100-ka and 41-ka periodicities that correlate well with the loess-paleosol monsoon record and isotopic global climatic record from deep sea sediments as well as by a long trend of coarsening in gravel grain size. The coarse gravel layers were formed during the warm-humid interglaciations while the fine layers correspond to the cold-dry glaciations. Because the paleoclimate in NW China began to get dramatically drier after the mid-Pleistocene, we think the persistent coarsening of gravel grain size was most probably caused by the rapid uplift of the northern Tibetan Plateau, and that the orbital scale cyclic variations in gravel grain size were driven by orbital forcing factors that were superimposed on the tectonically-forced long-term coarsening trend in gravel size. These findings also shed new light on the interaction results of climate and tectonics in relation to the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau.
以2000年Landsat ETM和2005年的Landsat TM数据为信息源,通过人机交互方式提取了两期黑河流域中游地区土地利用/覆被数据。在此基础上,结合研究区的社会经济统计资料和气象观测资料,分析了黑河流域中游地区近5 a来土地利用/土地覆被变化(land use and land coverage,LUCC)的时空变化格局和土地利用类型转变的趋势及其驱动力。结果表明,5 a间耕地和居民用地面积分别扩大了6.95%和9.78%,草地和林地都有相应的减少。尤其是水域和未利用土地,分别减少了1.70%和0.88%,黑河流域生态环境有总体变差的趋势。驱动力分析表明,环境变化是人文因素和自然因素共同作用的结果,并且人为因素占主导地位,在此情况下,本区生态环境存在着继续恶化的潜在危机。
