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Discovery of Ordos Cretaceous Dune Rock and Its Significance

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Discovery of Ordos Cretaceous Dune Rock and Its Significance Discovery of Ordos Cretaceous dune rock and its significance LI Xiaoze, DONG Guangrong , JIN Heling, SU Zhizhu and WANG Yuanping I~tritueof Desert Research , Chinese Acuderny of Sciences , Lanrhuu , 730000, St& Key Labordory of Lous and Quaternmy. Chinese Academy of Sciences , Xi ' an 7 10054, China Abstract It has been found that there existed quite a large quantity of dune rocks in the red sandstone of the Zhidan Group of Ordos Cretaceous strata. Their sedimentary structure, grain size and micro-shape of sand grains show an obvious aeolian features. Both the temporal and spatial distribution and sedimentary characteristics of these dune rocks suggest that probably a large sand sea once existed in the Ordos region. It belonged to a subtropical inland trade-wind desert with persistent hot climate and was also an important part of the Cretaceous red desert in China. Keywords : Ordos , dune rock, significance. THE widespread Mesozoic Zhidan Group of strata in the Ordos Basin was originally known as the Baoan system. Since it was established by Pan Zhongxiang in 1934 it has been receiving extensive studies of ge- ologists around the world['-" as inland fluviolacustrine deposits. Although numerous works mentioned the aeolian sand there and the strange phenomenon that "sand exists everywhere in the basin", it has never attracted much attention up to now. In recent investigation the authors found that there exist a large quan- tity of sand dune deposits in the Zhidan Group of strata, which has a very important paleoenvironrnent sig- nificance. 1 Distribution of dune rocks Dune rocks are widely distributed in the Ordos Plateau and surrounding regions (fig. I), and with Chinese Science Bulletin Vol .44 No. 22 November 1999 the Mu Us sandy land as its core they stretch north to the lower part of the Hobq Desert and extend south to the lower part of loess and red soil of the Loess Plateau. From the distribution of the Zhidan Group of strata it could be inferred that the north limit of the dune rocks is most likely to extend far to the south of the Hetao Plain, its south limit reaches the north of the Weihe River Valley, its west limit reaches the Yellow River Valley in Ningxia and its east limit reaches the west along the line extending from eastern Dongsheng- Yulin-Yan' an, which roughly coincides with the ap- proximately rectangular, south-north-extending early Cretaceous Ordos basin, 300 km wide from east to west, 600 km long from south to north, covering a total area of 180 000 km2. From comparative studies of actual investigation data with the regoinal table of strata and the geological map it has been found that the horizons of the dune rocks, with large-scale oblique bedding as the main marks, from bottom to top include such major Zhidan Group of strata as the Luohe ~ormation'l], Luohandong .1 Formation- ' , Ejin Horn ~orm~tion:~], Tegaimiao For- Fig. I. Sketch map of Ordos dune rock distribution (after mation, etc. ~t is generally believed that except the wf. [61). ... , Ihne rock distribution extent; ---,bound- ary of dune rock area; , observation point; actually Tegaimiao Formation that is late Cretaceous in age, +, determined location of dune. rock section. other formations of the Zhidan Group of strata are of early Cretaceous age. 2 Sedimentary characteristics of dune rocks The sedimentary characteristic of dune rocks mainly is manifested in sedimentary structure, grain- size fraction and surface microtexture of sand grains. Aeolian sedimentary structures are the most striking characteristic of dune rocks. The most common structures are the large-scale tabular oblique bedding, large-scale wedge-shaped oblique bedding, multi- stage interface structure, polygonal mud-flake lens, etc . Large-scale tabular oblique bedding exhibits a flat tabular or lamella parallel1 oblique occurrence, thickness of laminated bedding ranges from 1 to 2 mm, bedding dip varies between 25' and 27' as struc- ture changes are considered, both upper and lower interfaces are level. The lateral accretion thickness of strata system could reach several meters even tens of meters and the vertical thickness could reach several meters. According to the investigationL8: such beddings are widespread in barchan dunes and transvene sand dunes. Sand dunes advanced on the flat bed surface under the action of unidirectional wind and formed forset laminae, thereafter the upper and middle parts of sand dunes suffered from deflation subse- quently coming sand dunes. The laminations of large-scale wedge-like oblique beddings are mostly arcuate in shape, their tops are convergent or outwedging , gradually spread out downward and contact with bottom boundary, forming an inverted wedge. Thickness of laminated bedding varies between 1 and 2 mm, trans- verse length and vertical thickness of strata system reach tens of meters and several meters respectively. The dips of wedge-shaped strata are quite different, and constitute the formations of cross strata (fig. 2), reflecting the swing of sand ridges and wind direction changes. Such beddings are often found in the lon- gitudinal dunes and star dunes. Multistage interface structures can be divided into three classes, lamellar or tabular bedding plane belong to low-level interface and exist in the strata system; in between strata system is middle-level inter- face, such as the interface between neighbouring wedge-shaped strata; in between formations of strata Chinese Science Bulletin Vol .44 No. 22 November 1999 2103 NOTES systems, such as between cross strata formation and tabular strata formation or horizontal strata are high- level interfaces. Polygonal mud-flake lens consist of horizontal red sandy and wine clayey interbeds. Clay laminae ex- hibit a takyric and lamellar appearance, sometimes they exist as angular mud detrital sediments, they are a temporary deposit caused by rainwater in the interdune depressions and can be eroded and transported again by wind after drying up by evaporation. Dune rock has the grain-size feature similar to that of modem dune sand. Grain size of unweathered dune rock mainly varies from 1 to 4 0, dominated by fine sand, followed by middle and very fine sand; coarse sand, silt and clay are negligible( < 1 % ) . Mean grain size varies between 2 and 3.38, belongs to fine sand, cumulative probability ( fig. 3 ) curves are mosty unimodel and bimodal and, trimodal curves are scant. Traction and suspension particles are few ( < 1 % ) . Folk sorting coefficient ( 6, ) ranges from 1.08 to 0.48, namely moderately and well sorted; skewness ( SK) ranges from - 0.28 to 0.54, dominated by negative snewness ; kurtosis ( KG) varies greatly, generally ranging from 0.56 to 2.58, dominated by narrow kurtosis. The grain-size features mentioned above are quite similar to those of dune rocks in the Gobi Desert (Mongolia) dune rocks"0' and modem dune sand in the Mu Us sandy land. Fig. 3. Several grain-size prubability curves of Ordos -10 dune rocks. 0, Modem dune sand at south bank of the Salawusu River; 1-3, dune rocks of Luohe Formation Fig. 2. Actually determined profile of of strata in Jingbian; 4, dune rock of Zhidan Gruup of wdimentiuy structure of Oune rock in the strata in the Batuwan of Uxin Banner; 5, dune ruck of Yangqiaopan Village of Jingbian County in Zhidari Group of strata at 2 km southeast of Otog Ran- Shnnnxi Province. net. Dune rocks have noticeable aeolian microstmcture. Under the stereoscope, dune rocks show a grain- supporting, grains are mostly munded and very well rounded, only a few grains are subrounded, their surfaces are generally covered with brown desert varnish, with greasy luster and weak transparent appear- 21 04 Chinese Science Bulletin Vol .44 No. 22 November 1999 NOTES ance as well as well-developed small pits made by impact on one grain against another. After the desert varnish was removed by boiling in the hydrochloric acid quartz and feldspar grains show a colourless, transparent glassy luster. Under the scanning electron microscope, the surface of quartz grains shows typi- cal aeolian saucer-shaped pits, cresent-shaped pits, collision-caused spot-like micropits as well as chemi- cal corrosion and precipitation signs (figure 4) . Fig. 4. SEM photographs of surface texture of quartz grain in dune rock of Luohe Formation in Zhidan Group of strata at Yangqiaopan Village of Jingbian County. (a) x 100, dune sand appearance, saucer-shaped pits; (b) x 625, cresent-shaped pit, with SiOz precipitant within it, corroded marks on the slope surface; (c) x 500, spot- like pits at the surface and aeolian V-shaped pit. 3 Significance Dune rocks are the sedimentary rocks formed by ancient sand dunes through consolidation and diage- netic processes. They can be used as "fossil" evidence for the existence of ancient desert and their bed- ding attitudes can be used as the direct evidence for the reconstruction of ancient wind regime and ancient circulation. Stratigraphical data showed that dune rocks of the Zhidan Group are extensively present in a number of formations above the conglomerate of the Yijun Formation. On the whole, a number of dune rock layers and a number of fluviolacustrine sedimentary layers formed an interbedded and multicyclic deposits in the vertical direction. In the horizontal direction, the dune rocks are widespread in the Ordos Basin. Such space-time combination phenomena of sand dune deposits and fluviolacustrine deposits are widespread in various major Quaternary deserts of China. This is mainly related to the swing of river course during the processes of the subsidence around the periphery of the basin and the stratigraphical accretion. Conse- quently, the Zhidan Group is most likely to be a desert sedimentary system formed by the alternatingly su- perimposed strata of sand dune and fluviolacustrine deposits, which suggests the existence of a ancient large sand sea in the region, here we temporarily call it "Ancient Ordos Sand Sea".
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