沙漠研究 24-1, 241-244 (2014)
Ἃ₍◊✲ 24-1, 241 - 244 (2014)
Journal of Arid Land Studies
Journal of Arid Land Studies－ DT11 Refereed Paper －㸫DT11 Refereed Paper㸫Study of the Response of Tamarix Cone Sedimentary Veins to Climatic andEnvironmental Elements in Arid Zones
Yuanjie ZHAO*1) and Xuncheng XIA2)
Abstract: In order to perfect and popularize the method of using Tamarix cone sedimentary veins to reconstruct the climatic andenvironmental element sequences in arid zones, this paper has summarized the author’s and relevant scholars’ research progresses inthis study area. In the area with modern strong wind-sandy action, the clear Tamarix cone sedimentary veins have become aneffective dating method, and a paleo-climatic and environmental information carrier. There are clear sedimentary veins within
Tamarix cones in Lop Nor region that can be used for dating directly. For the age sequence establishment of the Tamarix cones withdiscontinuous clear sedimentary veins, it is necessary to comprehensively use various kinds of dating methods including 210Pbex, 137Cs,and 14C and so on. The parameters of sand material, the content of organic carbon and nitrogen, positive ion, the value of stablehydrogen and oxygen isotopes, as well as the sporo-pollen assemblage contained in Tamarix cone sedimentary veins, have sensitive
responses to the climatic and environmental change. Although the single climatic and environmental proxy can reflect climatic andenvironmental change to a certain degree, comprehensively to use multiple proxies contained in Tamarix cone sedimentary veins toresearch the regional climatic and environmental change is more effective and accurate.
Key Words: Climate, Dating, Environment, Tamarix cone

1. Introduction
In modern desert regions with strong wind-sandy actions,
there are not so many traditional dating materials suitable toestablish the high resolution age sequence of sediments inrecent hundreds of years, such as tree rings, varved lake
sediments, peat bog sediments, historical documents and so on.
The specific Tamarix cone sedimentary veins, like tree-rings,
can not only be used as a means of sedimentary dating withyearly resolution, but are also the effective carriers of
paleo-climatic and environmental information in arid zones(Xia et al., 2004, 2005a).
The researched results show that the main processing steps
are: on the basis of field survey, choose the typical Tamarix
cones, take out the clear profiles, count the sedimentary veins,
sample the sedimentary veins layer by layer, separate andpretreat the sand materials and organic matters of the samples;
then by means of the corresponding equipment to measure thegrain sizes of the sand materials, the C/N of organic matters,
the positive ion contents, the stable isotopes, the pollen
assemblage types, etc.; combined the counted sedimentary veinages with the dating by 210Pbex, 137Cs and 14C and so on of themarker sedimentary layers, establish the age sequences;making use of the observed meteorological and environmental
data, establish the correlation model between them and the* Corresponding Author: ecoenvir@163.com

climatic and environmental proxies, and further reconstruct thechanging sequence of temperature, precipitation, wind speed,
atmospheric CO2 concentration, etc.
In this paper, we have summarized the recent progresses inthis research area in order to supply references for the relevant
researches and the similar arid regions.

2. Tamarix and Its Distribution
Around the world, Tamarix includes more than 90 species
that mainly grow in the old Continental temperate and tropicaldesert, semi-desert and grassland areas. In China, Tamarix
includes 18 species and 1 variation. In Xinjiang, Tamarix
accounts for 84% of the total species number in China, andespecially is the richest in the southern Xinjiang (Yin, 2002).
Tamarix chinensis is a kind of deciduous shrub. TheTamarix cones distribute in groups in the southern region ofTaklimakan Desert, both sides of the rivers such as Tarim River,Hotian River, Keriya River, Cheerchen River and Kongque
River etc., as well as the ancient river courses and local
lowlands in the desert area (Muhtar et al., 2002).

3. Formation and Structure of Tamarix ConeTamarix cones belong to a kind of shrub-coppice dunes
formed by sand materials depositing around Tamarix plants in㸦Received, August 22nd, 2013; Accepted, January 13th, 2014㸧

No.20, East Road of 2nd South Ring, Yuhua District, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China, 050024
1) College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Hebei Normal University, China
2) Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China

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extreme arid zones. It is a specific kind of biologicallandform type in desert environments (Mu, 1993). The
typical Tamarix cone is in a semi-circle or circular shape with
3-10 m height on the whole, the shape change of which is
closely related to Tamarix physiological and ecologicalcharacteristics and its development stage (Muhtar et al., 2002;
Li et al., 2010).
In the strong windy season of spring and summer, the sandmaterials carried by wind-sandy flows are obstructed byTamarix plants, around which they land and deposit to form thesand sedimentary layers. In autumn and winter, because thewind speed lowers and the wind-sand actions decrease, thefallen Tamarix leaves form the litter layers (Muhtar et al.,2002). One sand sedimentary layer and one litter layer
constitute a sedimentary vein. The time resolution of such
sedimentary veins can reach to an annual level (Xia et al.,2004), i.e. if the sedimentary veins are clear, they may becounted by the naked eye as a dating method.
As early as the mid 1980s, scholars found that there are as
many as 623 layers of Tamarix cone sedimentary veins in theLop Nor region. A later investigation found that in someTamarix cones there are even more sedimentary veins (Xia etal., 2004).

4. The Dating of Tamarix Cone Sedimentary Veins
About the formed ages of the Tamarix cones, as early as
100 years ago, Sven Hedin thought that the Tamarix cone cangrow 10 m high every one thousand years. Huntington(1907) wrote that “I am sure that the Tamarix cones with 50-60feet height have the grown history of 500-1000 years” (Xia etal., 2005b).
The 14C (AMS) age of the 280th layer counted from thesurface layer downward (corresponding to 280 a as dated by
sedimentary vein dating method) of the sedimentary veins ofTamarix cone with 7 m height at the downstream of Damagouin Cele County of Xinjiang is 290±100 a. Based on theinformation from the archeological studies, the ancient Andier
City in Minfeng County of Xinjiang was abandoned about1000 years ago. In the ancient city gate, there is an 8 m highTamarix cone with 800 layers of Tamarix cone sedimentaryveins. The sedimentary vein dating method indicates that thisTamarix cone was formed about 800 years ago, i.e. the cone isformed after the ancient city is abandoned, and therefore, thehuman activities are stopped. The comparison between the
counted results from sedimentary veins and the 14C (AMS) as
well as the archeological studies have verified the accuracy of
the Tamarix cone sedimentary vein dating method (Xia et al.,2004).
In Lop Nor region, the dating results by means of Tamarix

cone sedimentary vein dating method also correspond to theinferred age by 137Cs and 210Pbex (Zhao et al., 2011a).
However, the researched results in the southern region of
Taklimakan Desert show that the morphological structures ofTamarix cones have significant differences in different concrete
positions, and not every Tamarix cone has the clear
sedimentary veins suitable for dating. For the age sequenceestablishment of the Tamarix cones with discontinuous clear
sedimentary veins, it is necessary to comprehensively use
various kinds of dating methods including 210Pbex, 137Cs and14C and so on. For example, by this method, the age
sequences of Tamarix cone sedimentary veins at ancientAndier City of 1792-2010 A.D., Andier Meadow of 1600-2010
A.D. and Damagou of 1590-2010 A.D., in the southern regionof Taklimakan Desert were established (Wang, 2013).

5. The Response of Tamarix Cone Sedimentary Veins toClimate and Environment
The grain-size of sand materials, organic carbon andnitrogen content, positive ion content, stable carbon andhydrogen and oxygen isotope values, as well as sporo-pollen
assemblage contained in Tamarix cone sedimentary veins inarid zones, record the information of climatic andenvironmental change.
Zhao et al. (2007) revealed that grain-size parameters suchas the grain-size, sorting coefficient, skewness value, andkurtosis value of sand materials in every Lop Nor Tamarix
cone sedimentary vein are relatively consistent.
Thegrain-size distributed curve, and the accumulated probability
curve are also similar, which indicate that in about the past 150
years the climate and environment have not experienced
dramatic changes. Zhao et al. (2011b) also qualitativelyanalyzed the climatic evolution process in Lop Nor region bymeans of the correlation between the TOC content, TN content,
C/N value of the fallen Tamarix leaves, and the temperatureand precipitation. Shen et al. (2012) found that there is acertain correlation between the change of K+, Na+, Ca2+ andMg2+ contents in the fallen Tamarix leaves and the changes ofthe local climate, soil salinity, groundwater quality,
underground water level, and Lop Nor water area, especially
the Tarim River basin’s flood in 1958. These are clearlyshown in the changes of positive ion contents.
Zhao et al. (2011a) previously reconstructed the climaticelements such as the mean relative humidity from August toOctober, the mean wind speed from April to May, and themean annual temperature in Lop Nor region since 1839 bymeans of the high-frequency change of į13C sequence ofTamarix cone sedimentary veins. The analysis of power
spectrum indicates that the quasi-periodic oscillations of 42.0 a,

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10.5 a, 8.4 a, 4.0 a, 3.4 a and 2.9 a are involved in thehigh-frequency information of į13C sequence. The quasi-periodic of 10.5 a reflects the active cycle of sunspots around11 years.
Wang et al. (2011) previously reconstructed the climaticelement change sequences in the past 160 years on the basis of
the data of įD and į18O. The results show that the variation
amplitude of the minimum air temperature in March is lessthan 1°C. The change of the mean relative humidity fromFebruary to April exhibits a certain periodicity, but also
exhibits an attenuating trend as a whole. In the time fromabout the 1930s to 1960s the precipitation in July is very low,but since the 1960s it has been increasing gradually.
Based on the data of the sporo-pollen assemblage ofTamarix cone, Wang et al. (2010) had divided the climaticchange in Lop Nor region into 3 stages. During the period of
1839-1886 A.D. the climate is relatively cold-dry in the wholeand has a trend ranging from the cold-dry to the warm-wet.
During the period of 1891-1941 A.D., the climate changes
alternatively between the cold-wet, the cold-dry and thewarm-dry. During the period of 1946-2004 A.D., the climate
has changed from the warm-dry to the warm-wet. Since thelate 19th century, the pollen concentration has been reduced
continuously with the aggravation of human activities.
Although the single climatic and environmental proxy may
reflect the climatic and environmental change to a certain
degree, it is more effective and accurate for the research on theregional climatic and environmental change tocomprehensively use multiple proxies contained in Tamarix
cone sedimentary veins.
By means of į13C, C/N value of the fallen Tamarix leaves
and thickness of the sand layer of Tamarix cone sedimentaryveins, Xia et al. (2005a) qualitatively analyzed the climaticfluctuations in Lop Nor region from 1871 to 2001. He
postulates that from 1871 to 1926 the climate is cool and dry,
and the wind-sandy action is violent; from 1927 to 1967, it is alittle cold and dry, and the fluctuation is obvious; from 1967 to2002, it is relatively warmer with more precipitation. The
climate in Lop Nor region has changed from the relatively dry
to the relatively wet in about 100 years.
The contents of TN, K+ and Na+ in the fallen leaves ofTamarix cones have a positive correlation with the meantemperature from June to August. The values of į13C andTOC are negatively correlated with the mean air relative
humidity from September to October, and the contents of K+,
Ca2+ and Mg2+ are positively correlated with it. There is apoor correlation between all the climatic proxies and the total
precipitation in the time from June to August in Lop Norregion. Based on the chosen significant correlation factors,Sun et al. (2013) reconstructed the mean temperature sequence

from June to August, and the mean air relative humidity
sequence from September to October. The reconstructedmean temperature sequence in Lop Nor region in the period
from June to August in the past 160 years can be divided into
four warmer stages and three colder ones. The reconstructedmean precipitation sequence from September to October has
three drier stages and three wetter ones, and are divided into thecold-warm and dry-wet climatic periods during the same time.
Making use of the method of correlation analysis, Zhao etal. (2012) revealed the correlation between the occurrence ofextreme climate events and the extreme data of various
environmental proxies including the sand layer thickness,positive ion content, C/N, į13C, įD and į18O of the fallen
Tamarix leaves and so on, and analyzed the age sequence ofthe past extreme climatic events and their influencing factors inLop Nor region during about the past 160 years. The
influencing factors on the extreme climatic events mainly
include the El Nino phenomenon, the Indian Ocean Monsoon
Circulation, and the Westerlies. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
has also the ability to strengthen or weaken the above factors’
effectiveness.
At present, the research of the climatic and environmental
change by means of Tamarix cones in the southern region ofTaklimakan Desert are well underway, and some climatic andenvironmental proxies such grain-size, C/N, į13C, sporo-pollen
assemblage have been analyzed. The preliminary analyzed
results show there is a better correlation between the climaticand environmental proxies and the climatic and environmentalelements.

6. The Future Development Trend of Tamarix Cone
ResearchIn Lop Nor region, it is necessary to further research thecorrelations between the growth status of Tamarix and the salt
water condition in order to: determine the ecological water use,
and to provide basic data for ecological restoration measures;to estimate the source of precipitation and their proportion bymeans of stable hydrogen and oxygen isotopes; and toquantitatively evaluate the degree of land desertification basedon the information contained in Tamarix cones.
The research focuses on Tamarix cone sedimentary veinsin the future also include: the universality of generalizing from
Tamarix cone to other plant cones; the feasibility generalizing
from Lop Nor region to other arid regions; and the operabilityof generalizing from modern plant cones to the old ones.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Grant No. 41071133) and the United244

Foundation of NSFC-Xinjiang (Grant No. U1303285).

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