The Influence of the Loess Plateau on Chinese Traditional Culture

How was the Loess Plateau formed? Our everyday conception of loess refers to yellow dusty soil in a state between dispersed fine sand and sticky clay. Geologically, loess refers specifically to the yellow soil that forms the Loess Plateau in China, and can also be thought of as a sort of loose, soft rock. Unlike biologically produced soils, it is the result of the long-term accumulation of sand and dust blown by the wind. Loess is a specialized deposit formed during the Quaternary Period and continuing today under arid conditions.

In the Gobi Desert and other arid areas of the "morning wear cotton jacket afternoon wear yarn, around the stove to eat watermelon", the day and night temperature difference is very large, and the different minerals within the rock thermal expansion and contraction are not the same degree of long-term repeated expansion and contraction, the link between each other becomes loose, thus cracking, flaking, resulting in sand and dust. Sand grains in the desert are blown around by the wind for years and years, colliding and striking each other, resulting in many tiny sharp-edged particles, which are the main substances that form loess. Northwest winds blowing from the slopes, the sand and dust are swept up into the big air to fly into the distance, and the finer the sand and dust, the farther it floats.

China's loess accumulation areas are exactly the kind of places where downdrafts are prevalent, favoring dust fallout. On a map of China, you can see a sequence of gradually smaller rock particles from west to east, from the Gobi to the desert to the loess. The Loess Plateau is the result of millions of years of "dust storms".

In China, loess is found in Shaanxi, Ningxia, Shanxi, Henan, Gansu, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Liaoning, with a distribution area of more than 440,000 square kilometers. In these areas, the development of loess is not exactly the same degree, according to the survey, some places thickness of only 10 meters, some places loess thickness locally reached more than 400 meters, to the northwest and the middle reaches of the Yellow River along the development of the best.

In our country the above loess distribution of neighboring areas, more widely distributed in these wind-deposited loess by the action of water re-modification of the formation, or arid, semi-arid climatic conditions by the action of water reweathering and accumulation of the formation of the appearance of loess of the secondary loess. Widely distributed thick layer of loess and secondary loess, loose and porous, uniform texture, easy to cultivate, can form fertile soil. Since ancient times, agriculture in the central plains of China and the development of Chinese culture as a whole have been closely associated with loess.

The loess is also unfavorable to the development of production, that is, the loess is very loose, easy to be eroded, especially easy to cause soil erosion. In addition, the unreasonable reclamation and utilization of the way, so that soil erosion phenomenon is more intensified, the ecological balance has been seriously damaged, China's Yellow River sand transfer is very considerable, in the 1980s to more than 1.6 billion tons per year, for the world's major rivers of the crown, of which more than 80% of the sediment from the Loess Plateau. Governance of the Yellow River, the rational development and utilization of loess resources, is related to China's national economic construction and development of the major events.

Scientists in recent years will be China's loess and the ocean's deep-sea sedimentation, polar ice core and called the discovery of the three most complete global climate history book. In particular, China's Loess Plateau, whose sedimentary history is like a precious tome, has recorded the major geological events that have taken place in Eurasia over more than 2.4 million years, such as bioclimatic environmental changes, neotectonic movements, and the history of the development of human culture. The study of China's loess has aroused a growing interest among scientists.