Climate change is today one of our highest priority challenges. But to understand the change in climate and to be able to make predictions about the future, knowledge about past climate is of substantial importance. The key archive of past climate change can be studied through loess deposits. This paper examines loess sources in Europe and how deposits can tell us about different origins through different geochemical techniques and methods. Secondary data of loess deposits and sources over Central-Eastern Europe have been collected and examined in order to test some of the possible major dust source areas for European loess deposits that have been suggested by other scientists. Different techniques and methods are used to examine loess sediments when trying to identify their origin. Generally, techniques and methods can be divided into geochemical and analytical parameters, which are XRD (X-ray diffraction) and XRF (X-ray fluorescence spectrometry), elemental ratios, SrNd isotopic analyses, zircon U-Pb geochronology, combined bulk and single grain analyses, as well as more statistical approaches. The results are based on the three mainly studied articles show that it is more likely that loess sources are coming from High Alps and mountain areas, such as the Carpathians, rather than from glaciers, as was previously the main idea. This paper therefore draws the conclusion that loess material, in most cases, seems to be originating from relatively nearby and local mountain areas and only a small portion appear to have been transported longer distances.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-412415 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Gaita, Hanna |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för geovetenskaper |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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