A case study on determining the migration speed of barchans based on carbon-14 dating
In the migration of active dunes,small psammophytes often die while being buried by the lee of the dune,and subsequently plant residues appear at the toe of the windward because of wind erosion.The mean mi-gration speed of the dune during this time can be computed according to the death time measured by carbon-14 dating and the horizontal distance from the windward toe to the lee edge along the migration direction.Based up-on this principle and selecting the residues of shrub stems as dating materials,the migration speeds of three barchans at the upwind marginal area of the Minqin oasis are obtained.Compared with the more accurate results given by the interpretation of remote sensing images,it is found that carbon-14 dating can successfully determine the maximum time-averaged migration speed of barchans during several decades.
barchansmigration speedplant residuecarbon-14 dating
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
维普
