Time Variations of Erosional Force and Grain Size in Pleistocene Lake Sediments

Abstract

AbstractTheoretical investigations on models of the developmental processes of erosional features show that the time variations in erosional force have more sensitive influence on the time fluctuation of eroded material, such as sediments in lakes, than that of the quantity representing erosional features, such as volume of mountains. Time sequences of grain-size distributions from the Pleistocene sediments in Lake Biwa, central Japan indicate dominant periodicities of about 40,000 and 20,000 yr, very close to those predicted from the Milankovitch theory. The time variations of the grain-size parameters which may be indicators of erosional forces are very similar to that of the caloric summer insolation in the Northern Hemisphere.