26 - The base of the Quaternary in China

Summary

Introduction

The Upper Pliocene and Lower Pleistocene sediments in eastern China include various types of deposits, providing an ideal region for study of this part of the geologic record. The cave fillings, loess deposits, and strata of fluviolacustrine, coastal-plain, and marine origin combine to reveal the biological history, topography, climate, and active tectonics during that interval. This chapter presents an overview of the sections that are the most significant for separating the Pliocene and Pleistocene.

Starting in 1949, most Chinese geologists adopted the proposal made at the 1948 XVIII International Geological Congress in London to place the Pliocene–Pleistocene boundary at the first immigration of “cold guests” into the marine faunas of the Mediterranean region, exemplified by the paleontology at the base of the Calabrian Stage of Italy, and to consider that level correlative to the base of the Italian Villafranchian Stage in continental deposits. Because the Plio–Pleistocene vertebrate faunas in China have long been famous and better known (Teilhard de Chardin and Piveteau, 1930) than the marine sequences, the continental Villafranchian concept, rather than the marine Calabrian concept, was widely adopted as the basis for recognition of the base of the Pleistocene in China. It is now recognized that in Italy the earliest Villafranchian is almost twice as old as the base of the Calabrian Stage (Azzaroli et al., Chapter 11, this volume). The Chinese workers have maintained, however, that the Villafranchian definition is in agreement with the first cold-climate faunas of both marine and continental environments in that region, coinciding closely with the Gauss–Matuyama paleomagnetic reversal at about 2.6 Ma.