Pilot study for the geochemical characterisation of loess-palaeosoil sequences: the project S³

黄土-古土壤序列（LPSS）是欧洲气候条件的独特自然档案。它们的沉积记录提供了有关风况和土壤形成过程等方面的信息。然而，迄今为止，与湖相和海相沉积记录不同的是，LPSS的高分辨率地球化学分析很少发表。在这项研究（S³项目）中，将使用ITRAX XRF岩心扫描仪分析来自三个不同欧洲LPSS（德国中莱茵河谷的Schwalbenberg II、匈牙利多瑙河的Süttö和克罗地亚亚得里亚海北方的Susak）的干燥和研磨样品的元素组成。为了增加元素比值的解释力，将提供额外的CNS分析，并参考其他已发表的数据。这项试点研究的目的是比较常规获得的数据与XRF岩心扫描仪提供的地球化学信息，并调查是否可以将海洋和湖泊沉积物中已知元素比值的解释转移到风成沉积物中。这种全新的方法学方法应用于LPSS的解释，可能会导致一个后续项目，重点是利用XRF岩心扫描的全部潜力，对黄土主导景观的连续沉积物岩心进行分析。这种非破坏性方法将具有高达200 µm的高空间分辨率。因此，从LPSS的信息的时间分辨率将增加几个数量级，这使得高分辨率的中更新世和晚更新世的陆地气候和环境参数。

Loess-palaeosoil sequences (LPSS) are unique natural archives of climatic conditions in Europe. Their sedimentary records provide information about wind conditions and processes of soil formation amongst others. However, until today and different to lacustrine and marine sedimentary records high-resolution geochemical analyses of LPSS have rarely been published. For this study (the project S³) dried and ground samples from three different European LPSS (Schwalbenberg II at the Middle-Rhine valley in Germany, Süttö at the river Danube in Hungary, Susak located in the northern Adriatic Sea in Croatia) will be analysed for their elemental composition with the ITRAX XRF core-scanner. To increase the explanatory power of elemental ratios, additional CNS analyses will be provided and other published data will be consulted. It is the aim of this pilot study to compare conventionally obtained data with geochemical information provided by the XRF core-scanner and to investigate whether interpretations of elemental ratios known from marine and lacustrine sediments can be transferred to aeolian deposits. This completely new methodological approach applied to the interpretation of LPSS could lead to a follow-up project focussing on using the entire potential of XRF core-scanning for the analysis of continuous sediment cores from loess dominated landscapes. This non-destructive method would have a high spatial resolution of up to 200 µm. Thus, the temporal resolution of information from LPSS will be increased by several orders of magnitude, which makes available high-resolution terrestrial climatic and environmental parameters for the Middle- and Late-Pleistocene.