Elsevier

Quaternary Geochronology

Volume 49, February 2019, Pages 131-137
Quaternary Geochronology

Research paper
Luminescence characteristics of quartz from Holocene delta deposits of the Yangtze River and their provenance implications

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quageo.2018.04.010Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Provenance changes of Holocene Yangtze River delta deposits were studied with luminescence properties.

  • The luminescence sensitivity and thermal activation curve vary with stratigraphic units.

  • Luminescence sensitivities reflect sediment source variation of the Yangtze River delta.

  • Temporal variation of sediment source corresponds to the transgressive/regressive history and monsoon variation.

Abstract

The optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) sensitivity and OSL signal components of quartz grains were used to investigate provenance changes of Holocene sediments from the Yangtze River delta. The variation of luminescence sensitivity was observed in multiple grain aliquots and single grains of quartz from different sedimentary units of the Yangtze River delta. Laboratory experiments suggest that repeated dosing/bleaching cycles increase the luminescence sensitivity of quartz from the studied sediments. High variable thermal activation curves were observed even for samples from the same sedimentary unit, implying highly diverse sources for the delta deposits of the Yangtze River. Different sedimentary units show quartz with similar OSL component contributions, and repeated dosing/bleaching cycles and heating treatment are unable to affect the relative contributions of the fast and medium components to the bulk OSL signal. The samples from unit 1 (U1, tidal river, 15–11 ka), unit 2 (U2, estuary, 11–9 ka) and unit 6 (U6, delta plain, ca. 1 ka to the present) show relatively higher luminescence sensitivity in comparison to unit 3 (U3, tidal sand ridge, 9–4 ka), unit 4 (U4, prodelta, 4–2.5 ka) and unit 5 (U5, delta front, 2.5–1 ka), implying changing sediment sources over time. Such a temporal variation of sediment source can be explained by the transgressive/regressive history of the Yangtze River delta as well as by Asian monsoon variability since the last deglaciation. It demonstrates that luminescence sensitivity of quartz has great potential for tracing sediment sources in the Yangtze River delta, but more work is needed to characterize specific sources to establish a source-to-sink linkage.

Introduction

In addition to its widespread application in determining burial ages of Quaternary sediments (Aitken, 1998), the luminescence signal of mineral grains has also shown great potential in tracing the provenance of sediments (Li et al., 2002). Much effort has been devoted to the use of quartz luminescence sensitivity for tracing the sources of sediments in deserts (Li et al., 2007; Zheng et al., 2009; Lü and Sun, 2011; Zheng and Zhou, 2012; Gong et al., 2015), including loess sequences (Lü et al., 2014; Qiu and Zhou, 2015). In recent years, the technique has also been used to study the sediment sources of fluvial or coastal deposits (Pietsch et al., 2008; Tsukamoto et al., 2011; Sawakuchi et al., 2011, 2012; do Nascimento et al., 2015; Zular et al., 2015). For example, a study of the southern Brazilian coast showed that sediment source discrimination based on quartz optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) sensitivity is consistent with discrimination using particle size and heavy mineral variables (Sawakuchi et al., 2012; Zular et al., 2015). Luminescence properties of quartz (e.g. sensitivity, thermal activation and signal components) are affected by the parent rock, and therefore quartz from different sources should show different luminescence characteristics (Sawakuchi et al., 2011). However, it was also found that luminescence sensitization of quartz from the same source varies with the cycles of bleaching and irradiation during sediment transport (e.g. Preusser et al., 2006; Fitzsimmons, 2011; Sawakuchi et al., 2011). Therefore, the successful application of OSL sensitivity analysis in sediment source tracing requires a proper assessment of the influence of sediment transport history on OSL sensitization.

The Yangtze River is the world's third largest river with a catchment area of 1.8 million km2. The present Yangtze River delta has evolved in the context of post-glacial climate change, sea-level change and human activities (e.g. Li and Wang, 1998). There is a buried incised valley on the delta, which was formed during the Last Glacial Maximum and was subsequently infilled by early Holocene transgressive deposits and middle-late Holocene regressive delta deposits (Li et al., 2000). Several studies have used sediment cores from the incised valley to reconstruct the evolution of the delta (e.g. Wang et al., 1981; Chen and Stanley, 1998; Li et al., 2000; Hori et al., 2001, 2002; Wang et al., 2012; Song et al., 2013; Nian et al., 2018a,b). However, it is unclear whether there were sediment source variations during the Holocene transgression-regression cycle.

In this study, a sediment core from the incised valley of the Yangtze River delta was subjected to quartz luminescence sensitivity measurements (multiple and single grains) and analysis of their thermal activation characteristics and OSL components. The results are used to assess the influence of parent rock and sediment transport history on OSL sensitivity. The principal objective of the study was to investigate the potential of applying quartz luminescence signals in sediment source tracing of Holocene sediments in the Yangtze River delta.

Section snippets

Study area and methods

During the low sea-level stand of the late Pleistocene, the Yangtze River was incised to a maximum depth of 70–80 m in the delta region (Li et al., 2000). Since the Last Glacial Maximum, the incised valley accumulated sediment with the rising sea-level, and changed from a fluvial to an estuarine environment, and after the maximum transgression at ∼8 ka, the delta began to develop. Based on the seaward migration of river mouth sand-bar deposits, the development of the delta can be divided into

Luminescence sensitivity of multiple grains

All the OSL and TL intensities were normalized by the mass of each aliquot (signal per dose per mass, counts/mg/Gy). Fig. S2 shows TL and OSL curves representative of quartz samples from each unit. All 12 samples showed TL peaks centered around 90–120 °C and rapidly decaying OSL curves. As illustrated in Fig. 2, the quartz sensitivity shows both intra- and inter-sample variability. In general, quartz from U1 (tidal river), U2 (estuary) and U6 (delta plain) is more sensitive than that from the

Effects of sediment source vs. transport history on OSL sensitivity

Our samples show a large variability in OSL sensitivity among different stratigraphic units. In addition, there is also significant variability for samples within the same unit as well as among grains from the same sample (Fig. 2, Fig. 3a). Quartz sensitivities are influenced by sediment source as well as by transport-deposition processes. The OSL signal sensitivity ratios of our samples changed from ca. 1.00 to 1.95 after four different repeating cycles, and increased with increasing cycle

Conclusions

The luminescence characteristics of quartz OSL signals were investigated to trace the sources of Holocene Yangtze delta sediments. Our results indicate that quartz OSL sensitivity varies between different stratigraphic units. Repeated dosing/bleaching cycles influenced the OSL sensitivity, suggesting that transport-deposition processes are at least partially responsible for the sensitivity variations among the samples. However, the variations in the form of TAC imply that sediment source plays

Acknowledgments

We thank the anonymous referee for helpful comments that greatly improved the quality of the manuscript, and Jan Blomendal for language improvement. This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants 41771009, 41302135, 41271223), the Postdoctoral Special Science Foundation of China (grant 2017T100284), the Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China (grant 2015M571521), and the State Key Laboratory Special Fund (grants 2014RCDW02, SKLEC-2012KYYW01).

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