Talk:Loess Plateau

Wind Direction is described incorrectly in the first paragraph

The text reads "strong southeast winds caused by the East Asian Monsoon transported sediment to the plateau during the Quaternary period." This I believe is wrong because the winds came primarily from the Gobi (which is northwest of the Loess Plateau). In other words, the wind came from the northwest. By convention, winds are named for the direction they are coming from, not where they are going. Correct me if I am wrong.

Loess Plateau pollen records

A google search of "Loess Plateru" and "pollen records" shows research that seems to suggest that the Loess Plateau was a grassland with frequent fires and never a heavy forest. I am not a scholar, does any one else have any knowledge or information? KAM 13:34, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

I'll check my own research but I can say off the top of my head that the Loess Plateau was at somewhat forested because a) the Shang graph for farming indicated that Shang agriculture (Which developed on the plateau) took place among trees and b) the common Non-Arboreal Pollen vs. Arboreal Pollen counts indicate, at least ituitively, that there were trees to compare to non-tree sources. Whether it was a "heavy" forest, I don't know, but will check. Elijahmeeks 13:45, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Formation: source of the dust

A recent programme in the BBC series How Earth Made Us fronted by Professor Iain Stewart stated that the dust that forms the loess came off the Himalayas ie the wind was blowing from west to east. Does anyone have a ref for this? The BBC prog is still availbale online here [1] for a while: the ref was in the Wind programme but I don't know if it can be cited.86.159.39.99 (talk) 14:47, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

map request

It would be nice if the article showed a small map of China indicating where the plateau is, in relation to the rest of the country. 69.111.193.46 (talk) 02:35, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

That's already done in effect by the present map, which even prominently shows Beijing (albeit spelled in the French Pekín) despite the plateau not reaching into neighbouring Hebei. Wikipedia is not a media outlet, and I would oppose any attempt to treat Chinese geography in the same manner most news sources do, as if either China were a monolith or all Wiki readers were completely ignorant of the PRC apart from the top 3 cities—you should be familiar with the absurd usage of distance from Beijing as a one-size-fits-all metric or maps showing even villages yet pretending provincial boundaries don't exist! GotR ^Talk 01:59, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Comments from Graeme

Hi Christycheungkayan

In relation to File:GeoMap of Loess Plateau.png, you claim it is your own work. But it looks as if it is a scan of a map with a red line on it and a scale superimposed. If so you will need to credit the original map. And if it is not free, then it cannot be used. The map is so busy looking that we cannot really tell where it is.

Please don't add footnotes to the headings, as it disturbs the contents. Instead add your references to the paragraphs. Every paragraph should have at least one reference to say where info comes from.

Also what is Eu/Eu? It looks like the ratio of europium to europium. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:34, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Comment from Andy

Introduction Perhaps you can add some links on geology terms such as Quaternary, Gobi Desert and escarpments. The table 'Climate and environmental changes'is incomplete. Also, which event(s) lead to the changes in those aspects? In the 'Natural Hazards' table, it would be more informative if it showed the impacts/ causes that are closely related to Chinese Loess Plateau, especially for 'Dust storms' and 'Floods and droughts'. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LklAndy (talk • contribs) 06:42, 14 October 2021 (UTC)

Comments from Jasmine

Great use of tables! Very informative! Well organised outline.

I think you need a title.

It would be better if you could add a map showing which part of China is the Loess Plateau located in. Just a map with a red dot will do.

I had a misunderstanding in "This figure shows the change in geomorphology in the Loess Plateau." in the second figure. I read the figure before I read the paragraphs so I thought it was a change in geomorphology through time (from mountain to alluvial plane to river). Could change it into "This figure shows the relationship between the formation different geomorphology in the Loess Plateau".

In the third figure, "This map shows the geological development and sediments thickness in the Loess Plateau", well I don't quite see the geological development in the map. I think the geological development of the area is nicely presented in the table.

There are two blanks in the "climate and environment table". I guess you can say "NA" or "No effect" to clarify them a bit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jasminesongy (talk • contribs) 06:23, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Comment from Keith

Hi, The concepts are easy to understand, and the extensive usage of tables makes the page very organised. Some tables have missing content. Is it because we do not have such data or they are not important? I am a bit confused on this sentence: ‘Although not enough studies have been done for the impact of the population growth on the frequency of natural hazards in the Loess Plateau, there are more and more abnormal and extreme natural hazards.’ Is this sentence making the previous statement of ‘People clear the forest to get more land for agriculture activities and use the wood for fuel and building materials. This is the reason why the forest cover has decreased dramatically.’ invalid if there is not enough studies to support this cause? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TseKiChun (talk • contribs) 03:09, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Comment from Triton

Hi Christy,

I think you have illustrated all the main ideas clearly. However, in my opinion, listing the sources and the origins of loess are better to be done like what you have done in the tables i.e. to literally mark them with points (the * code). While you may consider simplifying the points in the tables with incomplete sentences.

I appreciate your diagrams, they are simple but useful to understand the ideas and is also artistic. However, it would be even better to add a satellite image to show its location in the introductory part.

One minor thing is that there is a large potential Wiki pages with keywords that you could link to. No offense but another issue is the occasional Chinese-style writing e.g. "If an area has gully erosion" → "If there is gully erosion in an area"/ "If an area suffers from gully erosion". Triton Chiu63 (talk) 08:50, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Comment from Lawrence

I think you can try to use Geomapapp to outline the boundary of Loess Plateau and put it on the introduction part. I appricate with those 3D diagrams. Obviously you put great effort on it. One minor thing is that I think the table of geological development should follow the stratigraphic column (i.e. the oldest events at the bottom while the younger on top) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Skhlaw (talk • contribs) 10:02, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

Comment from Candy

Hi Christy! These are my comments and hope they would help!

1. Good to add tables at the last part as a summary for the audience to read, the organization is really good.

2. Maybe better separate the introduction into two paragraphs, so readers can read more conveniently.

3. For the geology part, better to separate the three lithologies into three subsections, and with details under the subsections 4. Better add a scale to the diagram.

5. Good illustration for the geological development, easy to understand.

This page is very comprehensive and concise! Keep up with your work! :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Candyyeung168 (talk • contribs) 17:13, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 07:10, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

)

Loess landscape near Hunyuan, Datong, Shanxi Province, China

• ... that the loess in the Loess Plateau can come from over 1,250 km (780 mi) away? Source: "You are strongly encouraged to quote the source text supporting each hook" (and [link] the source, or cite it briefly without using citation templates)
  • ALT1: ... that the loess in the Loess Plateau can travel over 1,250 km (780 mi)? as above

• Reviewed: Capitalism in America
• Comment: For Regional Geology class in Hong Kong University

5x expanded by Christycheungkayan (talk). Nominated by Graeme Bartlett (talk) at 00:45, 15 November 2021 (UTC).

• This is just a comment but it may be a good idea to at least link to loess or somehow explain it since it's a technical term that most people probably don't know the meaning of. Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 05:53, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
  • @Graeme Bartlett: Hi there! Since we've gone from 4,706 characters of prose pre-expansion (in the week before nomination) to 18,572 presently, this article has only undergone a 3.95x expansion—to get to 5x expansion would require a total of 23,530 prose bytes, or 4,958 additional characters. Could this be done? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 21:38, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
    • The previous prose size was 3900 characters dated 2 August 2021. The date the page was moved would count as the expansion date, as history was merged from the sandbox on 13 Nov 2021, making the dates in the history a bit confusing. So that would mean the page should get to 19500 characters. It was that big when I nominated it. But since then some of the text was turned into a table. So I suppose I can de-table some text. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:34, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
      • Oh, I see, my mistake—interesting, I didn't see the histmerge. Yeah, you're much closer in that case—almost there! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/them) 23:01, 28 November 2021 (UTC)
        • theleekycauldron, it looks like Graeme Bartlett did do the detabling, and the prose character count is now 19656, just above fivefold of 3900. Please continue your review. Thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 19:56, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
          • Coolio! Article has indeed undergone a 5.04x expansion. The article is neutral, but if you could stick some citations on the paragraphs that end in "*blank* is broken up into x number of cycles or stages", that'd be helpful. Earwig returns a hit on the lead, but the wordpress article in question got it from you, not the other way around, so we're cool. The hook doesn't appear in the article, so that'll have to be slotted in and cited at the end of the sentence. A QPQ has been done. We're nearly there! theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 20:22, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
          • @Graeme Bartlett, how we lookin'? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 08:53, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
            • The original writer suggest the distance, but she has not put it in, so I will propose another hook Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:21, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
            • alt1 ... that the source of the Loess Plateau is the Gobi Desert and other nearby deserts? https://doi.org/10.1016%2FS0012-821X%2802%2900921-4 " the sand deserts were the primary single source of the Chinese loess. It is argued that the gobi (stony desert) in southern Mongolia and the adjoining gobi and sand deserts (the Badain Jaran Desert, Tengger Desert, Ulan Buh Desert, Hobq Desert and Mu Us Desert) in China, rather than the three inland basins, are the dominant source areas of the Loess Plateau."
              • @Graeme Bartlett: Hmm, I'm not sure that's the best hook to run. How about: theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 19:48, 15 December 2021 (UTC)
              • ALT2: ... that one of the largest and thickest loess plateaus in the world is the Loess Plateau in China?
                • alt2 is OK with me. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:32, 16 December 2021 (UTC)
                  • very noice! someone else'll need to tick this hook. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (they/she) 05:14, 17 December 2021 (UTC)
                    • ALT2 checks out. Rest of review per theleekycauldron. SL93 (talk) 22:49, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

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Promoting ALT2, with image, and with (pictured), to prep 2 – Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 07:10, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Content of the article

The article spends great length discussing geology and such of the Plateau, but there are no information on human activities, no matter past, modern, current, and future planned activities on the Plateau, how people living on it being affected by the Plateau, and how human activities are changing the Plateau, are all missing from the article.C933103 (talk) 08:28, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

@C933103: This section has several paragraphs describing human activities that cause soil erosion in the Loess Plateau. Jarble (talk) 04:26, 8 January 2024 (UTC)