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Volume 36 Issue 6
Dec 2025
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Journal of Earth Science  > 2025  >  36(6): 2789-2797.
Yan Zhao, Kang-Jun Huang, Yuanqiang Guo, Pan Zhang, Yawen Lu, Long Ma. Primary and Secondary Calcite in Chinese Loess Distinguished by Crystallinity and Implications for Illuviation Depth and East Asian Summer Monsoon Intensity. Journal of Earth Science, 2025, 36(6): 2789-2797. doi: 10.1007/s12583-023-1955-7
Citation: Yan Zhao, Kang-Jun Huang, Yuanqiang Guo, Pan Zhang, Yawen Lu, Long Ma. Primary and Secondary Calcite in Chinese Loess Distinguished by Crystallinity and Implications for Illuviation Depth and East Asian Summer Monsoon Intensity. Journal of Earth Science, 2025, 36(6): 2789-2797. doi: 10.1007/s12583-023-1955-7
shu

Primary and Secondary Calcite in Chinese Loess Distinguished by Crystallinity and Implications for Illuviation Depth and East Asian Summer Monsoon Intensity

doi: 10.1007/s12583-023-1955-7

  • State Key Laboratory of Continental Dynamics, Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Early Life and Environment, Department of Geology, Northwest University, Xi'an 710069, China

More Information
  • Corresponding author: Long Ma, malong@nwu.edu.cn
  • Received Date: 15 Aug 2023
  • Accepted Date: 11 Nov 2023
  • Issue Publish Date: 30 Dec 2025
    Abstract

  • The crystallinity has the potential to distinguish the primary and secondary calcite in Chinese loess, which then provides insights into illuviation depth and variations of the East Asian Summer Monsoon. However, this aspect has been rarely investigated. In this study, we defined the crystallinity of calcite as the height/area (H/A) ratio of the diffracted peak at crystal face (1 0 4). The H/A ratio inversely correlates with the average width of the diffracted peak, where a higher H/A ratio indicates higher crystallinity of calcite. Through the mixing and synthetic experiments, we found that the H/A ratio is minimally affected by factors such as calcite content, deposition temperature or rate but significantly influenced by the ionic impurity and the mixing proportion of different calcites. Subsequently, we examined desert samples of loess sources and loess carbonate nodules. Desert samples predominantly consist of primary calcite which inherits characteristics from cryptocrystalline limestone with high levels of ionic impurities resulting in low H/A ratio of 4.30 ± 0.51. In contrast, loess carbonate nodules contain abundant secondary calcite precipitated within soil interstices with low levels of ionic impurities leading to a significantly higher H/A ratio of 7.76 ± 0.82. Consequently, higher H/A ratios during interglacial periods compared to glacial periods are attributed to variations in relative proportions between primary and secondary calcite in loess sequences. The thickness, between the glacial-interglacial boundary and the depth where the H/A ratio starts to increase from the bottom to the top in the loess layer, can be used to indicate the illuviation depth of upper-soil carbonates and the intensity of the East Asian Summer Monsoon. This proxy can be further applied in long-term loess sequences to uncover the summer monsoon evolution.

     

    • Electronic Supplementary Materials:   Supplementary materials (ESM Ⅰ Tables S1–S7, ESM Ⅱ Figures S1–S3) are available in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s12583-023-1955-7.
    Conflict of Interest
    The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
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