DATING METHODS FOR CHRONOLOGICAL STUDY OF YARDANG LANDFORMS: A REVIEW AND PERSPECTIVE IN APPLICATION

The age of the Yardang landform is the important parameter for determination of erosion rate and erosion quantity. It is also the premise for deeper understanding of the formation and evolution of the Yardang landform, and the relationship between the Yardang and environment. As a type of erosional landforms, the age of the Yardang landform always remains as a puzzle to researchers, and become a bottleneck in the study. In this article, the authors made a review of the methods for dating Yardang landform. Then, we made a testing of the methods by applying some of them to date the Yardang landform in the Dunhuang Yardang National Geo-park. Our results suggested that the Yardang landform was formed in a period not later than 10kaBP and not earlier than 39 kaBP.At last,we prospect the direction of the yardang formation chronology research.