Advances in Earth Science ›› 2011, Vol. 26 ›› Issue (12): 1248-1259. doi: 10.11867/j.issn.1001-8166.2011.12.1248

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Research Progress on Reconstruction of Paleofire History

Zhan Changlin 1,2,4, Cao Junji 1,3, Han Yongming 1, An Zhisheng 1   

  1. 1. State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi′an710075, China;
    2. School of Mechanical Engineering, Xi′an Jiaotong University, Xi′an  710049, China;
    3. Institute of Global Environmental Change, Xi′an Jiaotong University, Xi′an710049, China;
    4. Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing100049, China
  • Received:2011-08-20 Revised:2011-10-19 Online:2011-12-10 Published:2011-12-10

Zhan Changlin, Cao Junji, Han Yongming, An Zhisheng. Research Progress on Reconstruction of Paleofire History[J]. Advances in Earth Science, 2011, 26(12): 1248-1259.

Fire is an important part of the Earth system. It is tightly coupled with climate, vegetation, biogeochemical cycles and human activities. The influences of fire on the global climate and ecosystems have become a hot topic in global change research. After the fire, many combustion products remain in the surrounding environment, such as black carbon, charcoal, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and levoglucosan, which are widely found in oceans, lakes, rivers, soils and terrestrial eolian sediments. Moreover, some traces like fire scars of trees, variation of soil magnetic parameters also remain in these records. These records not only reflected the history of paleofire activity, but also the climatic conditions and vegetation patterns in historical period,  so as to provide clues for reconstruction of paleofire and paleoclimate. This paper summarizes the major proxies that widely used in the paleofire history reconstruction and their potential problems. Meanwhile, it also points out the direction for the development of paleofire reconstruction in the future. Although different proxies have been successfully applied in the previous studies, due to the impact of anthropogenic activities or biological disturbance, and the differences in temporal and spatial scales, there are limitations for these indicators in the reconstruction of paleofire. This is not conducive to proper understanding the relationships between fire  and  human activities, climate change and the vegetation.

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