THE CLIMATIC CHANGES DURING LATE LATE-PLEISTOCENE INDICATED BY PEAT DEPOSIT IN THE NORTH LEIZHOU PENINSULA

The studied area, north Leizhou Peninsula, which is considered as the south limit of the sub-tropic areas and the north limit of the tropic areas, is sensitive to climate changes because the area is influenced by both southeast and southwest monsoons. Two peat deposit core sections were retrieved respectively at the Xialu Village in Suixi County and the Wushan Village near Zhanjiang City of the north Leizhou Peninsula, and give us the history of climatic changes from ca 50~10 cal kaBP. Based on the chronological analysis, the bottom of the peat section is determined at ca 42 cal kaBP. Sedimentary characteristics and multi-proxies of climatic changes such as humification degree (HD), loss on ignition (LOI) and organic matter (OM) reveal that during 50~30 cal kaBP, climate was dominated by evident wet and warm conditions,with several short-scale climate changes Heinrich events H5-H3 indicated. After 30 cal kaBP, climate became cold and dry. However,climatic change during Holocene was not recorded in the sections. Comparisons show that climatic change since 50 cal kaBP revealed by peat deposit in north Leizhou Peninsula, possibly had something to do with the insolation and change in ice volume in Northern Hemisphere. Red noise spectrum analysis shows several remarkable periodicities such as ca 1 440 a, 700 a, 650 a,and 500 a. The most evident period of ca 1 440, which is similar to the quasi-1 500 a cycle, is considered to be the O-D cycle driven by the Thermohaline Circulation(THC).