Figure 1: Location of the studied sections.
From: Early Pleistocene climate in western arid central Asia inferred from loess-palaeosol sequences
(a) Schematic map showing loess and desert distribution in mid-latitude Asia (modified from ref. 19). The green and yellow arrows indicate the major moisture sources and dust- transporting winds for the loess regions. The black dashed line indicates the boundary between ACA and monsoon-dominated Asia6. The green dashed line indicates the coastline of Paratethys during the Akchagylian stage (after ref. 43). Abbreviations for deserts: KR - Karakum, KZL - Kyzylkum, MYK - Muyunkum, GB - Gurbantunggut, TK - Taklimakan, KM - Kumtag, QD - Qaidam, BJ - Badain Jaran, TG - Tengger, MU - Mu Us; (b) Schematic map showing the location of studied sections, loess distribution, tectonic regime, and the dominant near-surfacewind directions around the NIGP. The data for drawing the distribution of loess in northern Iran comes from the Golestan Natural Resources and Watershed Management Central Office. The sand dune distributions were redrawn from ref. 55. The major faults in northern Iran were redrawn from ref. 56. The map was generated by the software of ESRI ArcGIS v9.3 using the SRTM DEM data (http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org).
