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Researchers explain how dust formed China's Loess Plateau

"You have to live it for it to really sink in," researcher Paul Kapp said of his visit to the plateau.

By Brooks Hays
Researchers from Arizona traveled to China to study the world's largest dust deposit, the Loess Plateau. Photo by Paul Kapp/University of Arizona
1 of 3 | Researchers from Arizona traveled to China to study the world's largest dust deposit, the Loess Plateau. Photo by Paul Kapp/University of Arizona

XIAN, China, Sept. 1 (UPI) -- New research suggests China's Loess Plateau, the largest dust deposit in the world, was formed by the winds blowing across the Mu Us Desert -- like a leaf blower piles fallen foliage.

Winds blowing across the desert deposited dust as they slowed, and over millions of years, the dust (or loess) accumulated.

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After visiting the desert and plateau, scientists at the University of Arizona realized that not only do winds continue to deposit dust and push the plateau farther downwind, the winds also shape the plateau's ridges.

"You have a dust-fall event and then you have a wind event that blows some of the dust away," Paul Kapp, a professor of geosciences at Arizona, said in a press release. "The plateau is not static. It's moving in a windward direction."

Kapp is the lead author of a new paper on the formation of the Loess Plateau, published this week in the journal Geology.

"The significance of wind erosion shaping the landscape is generally unappreciated," Kapp said. "It's more important than previously thought."

While visiting the plateau, Kapp and his colleagues all realized that local winds continue to shape the formation after the dust is deposited.

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"You have to live it for it to really sink in," he said. "You have to be out there in the field when the wind is blowing."

After mapping the plateau's ridge formations and the local weather patterns, researchers realized the ridges and dominant wind directions neatly aligned.

"I've never seen anyone look at the wind-related geomorphology and actually relate it to climatology at the large scale of the entire Mu Us Desert and Loess Plateau," Kapp said. "It's a rare approach."

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