Full text of DOI:10.1007/BF02906882

Vol. 44 No. 1
SCIENCE IN CHINA (Series D)
January 2001
Regularity of paleowind directions of the Early Cretaceous
Desert in Ordos Basin and climatic significance
JIANG Xinsheng (江新胜), PAN Zhongxi (潘忠习) & FU Qingping（付清平）
Chengdu Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources, Ministry of Land and Resources, Chengdu 610082, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Jiang Xinsheng (email: xuqiang@ mail. sc. cninfo. net)
Received December 14, 1999
Abstract By the measurement of the wind directional indicator of the Cretaceous desert in Ordos
Basin, the regularity of the paleoprevailing wind directions and pattern of the paleowind belts are
revealed. It is considered that the desert was controlled by a planetary wind system. In the early
stage, the subtropical high pressure zone drifted south and northwards with short cycles, resulting
in the alternation of westerlies and northeast trades; in the late stage, the subtropical high pressure
zone drifted southwards with a long cycle, placing the desert under the westerly belt and making
the desert completely controlled by the westerly belt. The reconstruction of the paleowind belts has
provided the evidence of the general circulation of the atmosphere for the pattern of the circulation
before the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau.
Keywords: Early Cretaceous desert, regularity of paleowind directions, pattern of paleowind belts.
The global climatic change study is a hot point today. As the pattern of the general circulation
of the atmosphere is the key factor for climate, the reconstruction of the pattern of the past general
circulation of the atmosphere has become an important part of the global climatic change study.
The paleowind belts are a component of the past general circulation of the atmosphere and also
the records of the circulation. Therefore, their reconstruction will be helpful to the reconstruction
of the general circulation of the atmosphere. In recent years, the pattern of the general circulation
[
1]
[2]
of the atmosphere has attracted great attention of scientists. For example, Zhang and Liu ,
based on the existence and inexistence of the Tibetan Plateau and paleogeography, divide the evo-
lution of the general circulation of the atmosphere in eastern Asia into two stages: the planetary
wind stage before the uplift of the plateau and the monsoon stage after the uplift of the plateau
which is subdivided into ancient monsoon and modern monsoon stages. While Dong et al., Jiang
[
3—7]
et al. and Cooke et al.
, based on the latitudinal distribution of the Cretaceous and Tertiary de-
serts and the generation of arid climate, suggest that there was a subtropical high pressure zone
across the eastern Asia and a planetary wind system, but have not found any direct record of the
circulation. It is true that before the Early Tertiary, not only organism, but also inorganism, i. e.
biogeography and lithogeography, show strong zonal distribution. It can only indicate that zonal
climate was evident at that time. Of course, as the climate is the result of the influences on the
ground by zones of the circulation, it is reasonable to deduce the existence of zonal circulation, i. e.
the existene of the planetary wind system, from the zonal climate. But it would be much better if

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REGULARITY OF PALEOWIND DIRECTIONS OF EARLY CRETACEOUS DESERT
25
direct record of planetary wind system were found. Prevailing winds are the main geological agent
for a desert which must leave deep stamps on the desert. The stamps on modern desert are re-
flected by dune migrating directions and on paleodesert by foreset dip directions. It is the most
direct geological record for reconstructing paleowind belts and has been extensively used to re-
construct paleowind belts, paleogeography, paleoclimate and even to check the paleolatitude de-
termined by paleomagnetism (cf. ref. [8]).
The Early Cretaceous desert in Ordos Basin is located on the north margin of the subtropical
[
9—11]
arid belt
, and is a part of “a red desert belt stretching across the center of China from north-
[
3, 12]
west to southeast”
. It is agreed that this desert belt was related to the location of the subtropi-
cal high pressure zone, i. e. a regional desert belt controlled by planetary winds. The purpose of
this paper is, based on the measurement of paleowind direction of the Early Cretaceous desert ba-
sin, to reconstruct the pattern of the paleowind belts and to provide further evidence for the con-
clusion mentioned above.
The Cretaceous in Ordos Basin is mainly formed by Zhidan Group which is subdivided in an
ascending order into Yujun Formation, Luohe Formation, Huanhe-Huachi Formation, Luohandong
Formation and Jingchuan Formation, among which Luohe Formation and Luohandong Formation
[
3, 5, 6, 12—15]
are the chief desert strata
. Therefore, they are the target horizons of this paper.
1
Method and result of measurement
i) Scales, life spans and preserving possibilities of eolian bedforms and the relationship to
(
the prevailing wind direction. Three orders of eolian bedforms can be recognised: ①microforms-
wind ripples (spacing 0.1—1m, spanning hours or days); ②mesoforms—dunes (spacing 50—500
2
3
5
m, spanning 10—10 years); ③macroforms—draas(spacing＞500 m, spanning 10 —10 years).
Ripples are formed by individual dynamic event, dunes are formed by seasonal-scale patterns of
wind direction and velocity and spatial changes in wind over larger bedforms, while draas are
formed by the overall geomorphological regime and local airflow conditions. Their migrating
speeds are quite different. Ripples migrate several meters an hour, dunes migrate several meters in
one year, and draas migrate only a few centimeters in one year. Therefore, draas are the most sen-
sitive bedforms to paleoprevailing wind directions, dunes are the second, and ripples cannot
reflect paleoprevailing wind directions. Consequently, the migrating directions of draas and dunes
are used to reconstruct the paleowind directions by measuring the dips of their foresets. The fore-
set cross-beds of draas are usually bounded by super or first order bounding surfaces, showing
large tabular-planar cross-beds which are easy to be recognised. The study and measurement of
modern deserts show that the foresets of a draa are very stable and concentric, while the foresets
of dunes are much more changeable and even reversible. However, in geological records, the
foresets of dunes often superimposed on draas are difficult to be preserved due to erosion by the
migration of new draas over them. Most bedforms in the study basin are draas. And dunes are very

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SCIENCE IN CHINA (Series D)
Vol. 44
limited, sometimes preserved in local horizons or on the tops of draa sequences (for instance, on
the top of the 34th horizon in Yongning section). Therefore, the dips of foresets in study basin can
reflect long periodic changes of paleoprevailings.
(
ii) Identification of dune types and relationship to prevailings. There are many ways of dune
[17]
type division. Among them, Wu’s division is based on dune shapes and the relationship to wind
regimes: ① transverse type——including transverse dune, barchan dune and parabolic dune, the
extending directions of them are normal or at 60°—90°to the resultant wind directions; ②
longitudinal dune——the extending directions of it are parallel or at ＜30°to the resultant wind
directions; ③ dunes formed by winds from several directions such as star dune——it is not par-
allel or normal to any resultant wind direction. According to this, the transverse types are most
significant to the reconstruction of wind directions. The identification of ancient dune types are
[
18]
based on shapes of sand bodies and types of cross-beddings. Mckee’s study
shows that the
cross-bedding units of barchan dune are tabular-planar in shape, spread angle of foreset dips is less
than 150°, only a few are 60°, the cross-bedding units of transverse dunes are also tabular planar
in shape, the spread angle of foreset dips is the least of all type dunes with one well-developed
maximum in the direction of the prevailing wind; the dips of the foreset cross-beddings of a para-
bolic dune are very gentle and the spread angle of dips can reach 200°; the dips of the foreset
cross-bedding of longitudinal dune are bimodel with almost 180°apart, and the internal structures
of cross-bedding units show tepee form. The measured sections (figs.1, 2) show that most of dune
cross-bedding units are very thick, tabular-planar shaped with dip spread angles less than 60°and
unimodel distribution. Only a few horizons have large dip spread angles with bimodel distribution,
for example, the spread angle of dips in the 9th, 18th horizons in section ⑤ are 150°and 110°,
respectively. According to the criteria mentioned above, the types of dunes in study sections are
[
12]
mostly transverse dunes and rarely barchan dunes. Although Li et al. have found some longitu-
dinal and star dunes, generally, transverse dunes are dominant. Thus the dune types studied may
reflect the prevailing wind directions. Glennie suggests that plots of cross-beddings on the polar
[
19]
net can be helpful in the identification of dune types . This method has been used here and the
results are the same with the analysis above. Due to the limitation of space, no figures are shown
in this paper.
(
iii) Revision of dips of foresets and formation of roses. As the thickness of each
cross-bedding unit is great, and the bounding surfaces are planar and far extending, each unit must
have represented an individual dune migrating event. Thus, in order to collect as many as possible
data, we traced along the strike as far as possible. Consequently, the data from different
[
20]
cross-bedding units are quite different. According to Collinson and Thompson , the graphical
presentation for paleocurrent direction has two main methods: radial line diagrams and rose dia-
grams with direction class intervals of 10°, 15°, 20°or 30°. As the amount of data is large, rose

No. 1
REGULARITY OF PALEOWIND DIRECTIONS OF EARLY CRETACEOUS DESERT
27
diagram is used in this paper with 15° class interval. For the data from different cross-bedding
units are different, if coordinate scale is used, the sizes of roses will be greatly different. Therefore,
in every rose, the data with the highest frequency is taken as 100%, and the frequencies in the rest
intervals are compared with the highest frequency to decide the length of each histogram.
The tectonic and paleogeographic studies have indicated that eastern China has been rotating
[
21, 22]
clockwise since the Cretaceous
, but the angles are quite different. Cheng’s result is
[
23]
[24]
[25]
0
° , Fang et al.’s is 8°—20° , Ma’s is 16° . Thus, in order to approach the original atti-
tudes, 15°is taken for revision and the roses here are rotated 15°anticlockwise. Polar net ploting
is not needed as the horizon in studied sections is nearly level with angle less than 5°. 10 sections
were measured, 8 in Luohe Formation and 2 in Luohandong Formation. Only some sections are
attached. The dips of cross-beddings in Luohandong Formation is uniform, only integrated roses
are made (fig.1), while the dips of cross-beddings in Luohe Formation are more changeable, roses
of every unit are made to show the changes (fig. 2).
Fig. 1. Integrated roses of foreset dips of dunes in Early Cretaceous Luohandong Formation in Ordos Basin (revised by 15°
anticlockwise rotation). (a) Luohandong section in Jinchuan (N = 9); (b) Fangshan section in Zhengyuan (N =7).
(
iv) Section introduction and wind direction determination. The dune sediment in the desert
sequence of Luohandong Formation in Jinchuan section is poorly developed but sand sheet and
wet indertune sediments are well developed. According to incomplete statistics, dune
cross-bedding units are 13. The dune sediment in the upper part of the sequence was reformed by
water and, as a result, detorted structures and wet interdune are very well developed. As the dune
units are relatively small, the dune sizes may be small. At the top of the sequence, the eolian envi-
ronment was transisting upwards to be fluviolacustrine facies in overlying Jinchuan Formation. In
the middle and lower parts of the sequence, both dunes and sand sheets are very well developed.
Each dune cross-bedding unit can be several meters thick. Many ripple lences can be seen in
the sand sheet. Above all, the sequence might be formed in a transitional environment on

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SCIENCE IN CHINA (Series D)
Vol. 44
Fig. 2. Rose column of foreset dips of dunes in Early Cretaceous Luohe Formation in Ordos Basin (revised by 15°
anticlockwise rotation).
the desert margin.
Above the solid line is the product of westerly belt and below the solid line is the alternative

No. 1
REGULARITY OF PALEOWIND DIRECTIONS OF EARLY CRETACEOUS DESERT
29
products of northeast trade and westerly belts; the overlying strata are the Early Cretaceous
Huanhe-Huachi Formation (K h) or Tertiary (E); the underlying strata are the Early Cretaceous
1
Yujun Formation (K y) or Middle Jurassic Anding Formation (J a).
1
2
Luohandong Formation in Fangshan section, Zhengyuan is composed of 25 dune units inter-
bedded with lots of wet interdunes in which mud cracks and calcareous concretions are well de-
veloped, being the typical central environment of the desert. All the cross-beddings are dipping in
[
14]
the east (fig.1). Qi et al. have collected about 150 directional data which dip in 80°—90° and
40°—150°dominantly, being similar to our results. The section in Yongning Village, Zhidan
1
County (fig. 2-①) is the nomenclature section of Luohe Formation, which is about 160 m thick
and composed of 44 dune cross-bedding units. The eolian sediment of the formation transforms
upwards into the fluviolacustrine sediment of Huanhe-Huachi Formation and parallelly uncon-
formed on the silicated dolomite of the Jurassic Anding Formation. It is mostly composed of large
tabular-planar cross-bedding units, only a few of which are superimposed by some wedge-planar
cross-bedding units, being draa sediments. The superimposed wedge-planar cross-bedding units
are the products of small barchans, while the large scale tabular-planar cross-bedding units are the
products of transverse draas which, as are superimposed by barchan dunes, are complex draas.
Below the 21th horizon, the dip directions are relatively variable, dipping in the east and the
southwest dominantly, the cross-beddings of the 3, 4, 8, 21th horizons dip in southwest with some
occasions of dipping in the north or south. However above the 22th horizon the cross-beddings dip
uniformally in the east with the exception of the upper part of the 34th horizon which is superim-
posed by 3 small dunes dipping reversely. Sections ②, ③, ④ are similar to section ①, only the
upper parts have been eroded and unconformed parallelly by the Tertiary. As section ⑤ is located
in the southwest fluvial environment, its bottom contacts with the underlying distal fan conglom-
erate of Yujun Formation, the top of which transforms into the fluviolacustrine sediments in
Huanhe-Huachi Formation. The wet interdunes are well developed, and the 12, 14, 24th horizons
of which are muddy silts of wet interdunes with level beddings, small ripple laminae, burrows and
mud cracks. Below the 15th horizon, the dips of the cross-bedding are of two main directions as
mentioned above, from the 16th horizon above, the dips are relatively uniformally dipping in the
east. Based on the judgements above, there are more barchans in the section, such as 8th, 9th, 18th
and 25th horizons. According to the varying trends of thickness, it seems that the thickness of
Luohe Formation is reducing with the increasing thickness of Yujun Formation. In the southwest,
Yujun Formation reaches its greatest thickness with the coarsest grain sizes which are reducing
gradually northeastwards, while the thickness of Luohe Formation is increasing northeastwards.
From the composition of the sedimentary facies of Luohe Formation, there are more wet interdune
and wadi sediments in the southwest which phase out northeastwards. Therefore, it is concluded
that the desert center is located in the northeast part of the basin and the desert margin is located in
the southwest.

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SCIENCE IN CHINA (Series D)
Vol. 44
Before determining the wind direction, it should be made clear that: first of all, the extending
lines of dunes are not straight, the foresets are curved surfaces, so the data from different parts are
certainly different; secondly, the curved surfaces of different types of dunes are different, resulting
in the different spreads of vectors; thirdly, the wind directions sometimes have a small angle with
dune migrating direction; fourthly, the wind direction obtained from some small dunes are unreli-
able; fifthly, influenced differently by the Coriolis force and local topography, the wind direction
vectors themselve are of certain divergent range. Thus, in this paper, the vectors between north
and southeast are combined into the eastern vector group and the vectors between south-southeast
and west into the southwestern vector group. The demonstration of the roses indicates that the dips
of foresets from the upper part of Luohe Formation to Luohandong Formation are confined in
eastern vector group, meaning that the dunes in this period moved eastwards and westerlies were
pevailing; while the dips of the foresets in the lower part of the Luohe Formation are sometimes
confined in southwestern vector group and sometimes in eastern vector group, implying that the
dunes of the period sometimes migrated southwestwards and sometimes eastwards; and westerlies
and north easterlies were prevailing alternatively with westerlies dominant.
2
Reconstruction of paleowind belts
Ordos Basin was located in the middle and low latitude of the northern hemisphere (31.2°N)
[25]
[5—7, 9—11]
during the Early Cretaceous , just crossing the subtropical high pressure zone of that time
.
As the topography in that time was rela-
tively even which had less influence on
the pattern of the general circulation of
the atmosphere, the wind direction change
trend is just coincident with the ideal
model of wind belts on the earth (fig. 3).
Based on the model, it is suggested that
the eastern vector group must have re-
sulted from westerly belt, while the
southwestern vector group must have
Fig. 3. Wind belt distribution in the northern hemisphere (after
Gao Guodong et al., 1988).
been produced by northeast trade belt. Further analysis shows that the early stage of this desert
was in the alternating period of westerlies and northeast trades, and the late stage was in the period
of westerlies. Thus, the wind system of them must be planetary wind system. The study on the
Late Cretaceous wind directions in Sichuan Basin which is in the south of Ordos Basin also sug-
[
26, 27]
gests the same conclusion
. The only exception is that the event was later than that of Ordos
Basin, indicating that the subtropical high pressure zone together with westerly belt had been
drifting southwards. From the 5 sections shown in fig. 2, the wind directions are generally in the
east and southwest, which are compatible with the modern dune’s migrating directions in this
[
17]
basin . The difference is that, because of the interaction of the Tibetan Plateau, the modern

No. 1
REGULARITY OF PALEOWIND DIRECTIONS OF EARLY CRETACEOUS DESERT
31
dunes are located further north than they should be. In addition, this compatibility does not ex-
clude the influences from the land-oceanic thermal gradient and the paleomonsoon circulations.
3
Interpretation of generation of wind direction changes
[
28]
The climatological study
shows that the replacements of wind belts in a region are
checked by the movement of general circulation zones of the atmosphere, and the movements of
the circulation zones are controlled by the changes of equator-pole temperature gradients. Basi-
cally, the subtropical high pressure zones may drift north and southwards with the fluctuations of
the temperature gradients, causing the north and southwards driftings of the trade and westerly
belts. The drifting may be annual changes by seasonal climatic fluctuation and may also be peren-
nial changes by long climatic fluctuation. According to the durations of dunes mentioned above,
the representation of the records in the desert must be the long periodic perennial changes.
By the wind direction change trends analysed above, during the early stage of the desert, the
subtropical high pressure zone has drifted sometimes northwards and sometimes southwards,
making the northeast trade belt and the westerly belt beside the subtropical high pressure zone
advance at one time and retreat the next, resulting in the frequent alternations of westerlies and
northeast trades. But during the late stage of the desert, the subtropical high pressure zone might
have drifted southwards and the westerly belt might have stayed on the desert for a long period,
making the westerlies dominant. The Bigarella’s interpretation to the wind belt replacement in the
[
28]
Sahara desert since the Pleistocene is the same as we used . Besides, Dong Guanrong’s interpre-
tation that the changes of the desertification and bioclimatic belt in Horqin sandy land are concor-
[
29]
dant with global temperature fluctuations caused by the gracial and intergracial fluctuations
also provides powerful collateral evidence for our interpretation.
The generations of the subtropical high pressure zone and wind belt driftings have no more
than two posibilities: i. e. relative drifting and absolute drifting of the general circulation zones of
the atmosphere. The relative drifting means that continental block is moving while the zones of
the circulation are keeping still. The result of paleomagnetic study suggests that the tectonics was
under a relatively stable period and the northern China block did not move north or southwards for
a great distance, but did a certain clockwise rotation. The interpretation of the diachronous phe-
nomenon from north to south in the Cretaceous deserts of the middle eastern China by Jiang Xin-
[
5,6]
sheng et al. has suggested a relative drifting . It is interpreted that the basin vacillated north and
southwards at first and then rotated clockwise, which made the subtropical high pressure zone
[
21—25]
move southwards relatively. This has been evidenced not only by paleomagnetism
, but also
[
30]
by the migration of flora provinces, deposition minerals and sedimentary facies distribution
.
The absolute drifting is that the continental block stands still but the zones of the general circula-
tion of the atmosphere move. It may be the north and southwards vacillation possibly caused by
the temperature gradient changes on the earth coupled with the global temperature fluctuations.
Judging by the seasonal drifting of modern subtropical high pressure zone, it seems completely

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SCIENCE IN CHINA (Series D)
Vol. 44
possible, but no evidence has been found. It is estimated that there was a catathermal event in late
period which made the subtropical high pressure zone drift southwards completely, being similar
to the southwards migration of the Sahara desert in North Africa during the Pleistocene. However,
this interpretation is contradicted by conventional ideas on the Cretaceous climate which has long
been described as a “uniform warm” and low temperature gradient period. Some one has doubted
[
5, 6]
[31]
it
and even found evidence for the temperature fluctuations during the Cretaceous
Climatic significance
It is well known that the existence of the Tibetan Plateau is the key factor for the pattern of
the general circulation of the atmosphere in eastern Asia. The special thermodynamics, obstruction
.
4
[
28]
and bifurcation of the plateau lead to the establishment of the eastern Asian monsoon systems
.
However, the formed knowledge about the wind belt and circulation pattern before the uplift of
the high plateau only remains at the stage of modeling and deducing and no measured data have
been reported. The reconstruction of the wind belts above gives further evidence for the existence
of the planetary wind system in eastern Asia.
Acknowledgements The field work has been guided by Prof. Qi Hua from Xi’an Institute of Geology and Mineral Re-
sources and the indoor work has been supervised by Academician Liu Baojun and Prof. Pan Guitang, Director of Chengdu Insti-
tute of Geology and Mineral Resources. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant
No. 49572113) and State Key Lab of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation (PLN 9732).
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