The Glycerol Dialkyl Glycerol Tetraethers (GDGTs) occur ubiquitously in a wide range of environments, such as loess, peat, lake, soil, and ocean, which vary compositionally in response to environmental changes, and provide a series of biomarker proxies for paleoenvironmental reconstruction. This paper introduced the structures and biological sources of GDGTs, and reviewed the recent progresses of the application of the GDGTs proxies in the paleoenvironmental reconstruction of loess deposits. The main progresses include: The GDGTs proxies have been widely used in reconstructing the climate changes in loess deposits, and have established the temperature changes of last 800 ka for the Chinese Loess Plateau; Temperature variations in Chinese Loess Plateau displayed significant correlation with the Northern Hemisphere insolation, which may be also regulated by the surface vegetation conditions; and In the Chinese Loess Plateau, the increase in monsoon precipitation during the last deglaciation significantly lagged behind the rise of temperature. However, problems still exist in the current studies. For instance, the GDGTs-based temperature is likely overestimated, probably reflecting the temperature of warm season, and relationships between GDGT indices and climate factors are still unclear. In the future, the development of new proxies and more accurate regional calibrations based on the separation of 6- methyl GDGTs are expected to provide more reliable paleoenvironmental information, and will provide essential evidence for the evolution of hydrothermal pattern and mechanisms behind climate changes in different regions. 相似文献
A model integrating geo-information and self-organizing map (SOM) for exploring the database of soil environmental surveys was established. The dataset of 5 heavy metals (As, Cd, Cr, Hg, and Pb) was built by the regular grid sampling in Hechi, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China. Auxiliary datasets were collected throughout the study area to help interpret the potential causes of pollution. The main findings are as follows: (1) Soil samples of 5 elements exhibited strong variation and high skewness. High pollution risk existed in the case study area, especially Hg and Cd. (2) As and Pb had a similar topo-logical distribution pattern, meaning they behaved similarly in the soil environment. Cr had behaviours in soil different from those of the other 4 elements. (3) From the U-matrix of SOM networks, 3 levels of SEQ were identified, and 11 high risk areas of soil heavy metal-contaminated were found throughout the study area, which were basically near rivers, factories, and ore zones. (4) The variations of contamination index (CI) followed the trend of construction land (1.353) > forestland (1.267) > cropland (1.175) > grassland (1.056), which suggest that decision makers should focus more on the problem of soil pollution surrounding industrial and mining enterprises and farmland.
