An indicator of sand storms in the south of the Tengger Desert

The Shagou section contains rich information about the formation and evolution of sand storms in the windward side of of the Tengger Desert (southern Tengger Desert, east of the Hexi Corridor). By investigating the grain size classes and the standard deviation of three sample groups in the Shagou section we discover that every group has four sensitive grain size components, and each sensitive grain size component has a tendency to be finest for the palaeosol stratum, coarsest for the sand stratum, and the loess intermediate between the two. The three sample groups have differences in their grain size distributions. Both S1 (average) and L1 (average) have two peaks. L1 (sand stratum) has three peaks and an additional coarse peak (275.4-550 µm) which is consistent with the grain size distribution pattern of the modern sand storm samples in the Tengger Desert. Moreover the additional peak of the palaeo-sand stratum correspondingly the interval of the grain size is exactly consistent with one of the four sensitive grain size components. Because the sand stratum in L1 of the Shagou section was the direct result of sand storm process of the Tengger Desert, the sand group percent of 275.4-550 µm in the Shagou section could be used as a sensitive indicator of sand storm in the south of the Tengger Desert (east of Hexi Corridor).