Late Quaternary fluvial terrace formation in the Luan River drainage basin, north China and its possible linkages with climate change and tectonic activation

The Luan River is the most important water system in north-eastern Hebei Province, China and is located in the transitional zone of the Eastern Yan Mountains, North China Plain and Songliao Plain. The well-developed river terraces of its tributary, the Yixun River, provide excellent information for studying neotectonics and climate change. There are seven terraces in the lower reaches of the Yixun River, numbered T7–T1. The optically stimulated luminescence dating results of 23 samples show that terraces T7–T2 formed at 111.36±5.83 ka, 78.20±4.45 ka, 65.29±4.15 ka, 56.44±3.07 ka, 40.08±2.66 ka, and 13.14±0.76 ka, respectively. A comparison with the oxygen isotope curves of deep-sea sediments reveals that the sediment formation of each terrace corresponded to cold periods of marine isotope stages MIS 4 and MIS 2 and the relatively cold periods of MIS 5e, MIS 3, and MIS 1. Since the Late Pleistocene, the incision rate of the Yixun River has ranged from 0.371–1.740 mm/a. During the formation of T7–T6, T5–T4, T4–T3, and T3–T2, the incision rate was low. However, in the two stages during which T6–T5 and T2–T1 formed (13.14±0.76 ka to 0.58±0.08 ka and 10.79±0.64 ka to 0.16±0.01 ka), these rates reached 1.554 mm/a and 1.592–1.740 mm/a, respectively. At approximately 30 ka, the activity of the Langying Fault increased, leading to footwall uplift. The river gathered in the north of Langying to form the ancient Erdaowan Lake, which resulted in the drying of the river in the lower reaches of the Yixun River during the last glacial maximum without forming river deposits. In the Early Holocene, headward erosion in the lower reaches of the Yixun River was enhanced, which resulted in the disappearance of the lake, and incised meandering formed due to increased neotectonism. Based on the analyses of river incision and the formation of ancient lakes and incised meandering, it was inferred that there have been three periods of strong tectonism in the river basin since the Late Pleistocene.