Abstract:China was formed by amalgamation of several small continental blocks (cratons), micro, blocks and orogenic belts in different paleoclimatic settings. It may be correlated with other continental blocks but has its own specific characteristics; therefore the tectonic environments of China's marine and continental saline basins and salt, and potash, forming environment have some specific characteristics: multiple phases of salt formation, difference in salt, forming ages, migration and concentration of salt, forming processes and diversity of component materials, as well as small sizes of marine saline basins and great changes of saline basins in the late stage and occurrence of abundant liquid mineral resources. The nature of the tectonic basement exerted a key controlling effect on the formation of potash basins. The stable tectonic region was favorable for potash concentration in a quasi, stable region, and quasi, and the quasi‐stable region was favorable for salt concentration and potash formation in a local stable tectonic region. Most China's major ancient saline basins occur in “quasi, cratons (continental block)”; especially all the marine saline basins occur in continental blocks with the Precambrian basement. These regions are the key ones for potash search. Most relatively large, scale soluble salt deposits are developed in relatively stable continental nuclei. According to the characteristics of the tectonic domains where China's salt, forming basins are located, the North China, Yangtze and Tarim, Qaidam salt minerogenetic domains and the northern Qiangtang, western Yunnan salt minerogenetic belt may be distinguished. Their salt and potash prospects will be discussed separately.

This paper for the first time reveals high-resolution core records of Zabuye Salt Lake in the interior of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. According to 1346 samples taken continuously, relatively accurate 14C, U-series disequilibrium and ESR ages have been obtained, thus revealing that the lake core ages from 0 to 83.63 m of hole SZK02 are -800 to over 128 ka. In the paper, the lake core sedimentary characteristics (including the lithologies and mineral assemblages) are analyzed in detail and correlated with ostracod assemblages I to XX and sporopollen zones A to I, and on the basis of an integrated analysis of the S '*O values of authigenic calcium-magnesium carbonate and environmental proxies of minerals, sporopollen and microfossils in the lake core, a correlation has been made of oxygen isotope change between this lake core and the Greenland GISPZ and GRIP and Guliya ice cores, and the climate of Zabuye Salt Lake since 128 ka BP is divided into the last interglacial stage (including substages e, d, C, b and a) of oxygen isotope stage (01s) 5, early glacial stadial of the last glacial stage of OIS 4, interglacial stadial of the last glacial stage of 01s 3, late glacial stadial of the last glacial stage or Last Glacial Maximum of 01s 2 and postglacial state of 01s 1; in addition, 6 IIeinrich (1Ir1I1) events, Younger Dryas event and 8.2 ka BP cold event have been recognized.

Lake geomorphology and high‐level lacustrine deposits since the mid‐late Pleistocene are well preserved in lakes of the Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau. According to geological surveys of 17 lake districts in different locations of the plateau, combined with interpretations of satellite images and topographic maps, the authors studied the timing of formation and scopes of the pan‐lake areas of the plateau and their paleoclimate. The latest two high lake levels (overflow surfaces) on the Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau in the Quaternary occurred at ∼40 to 30/35 ka and ∼65 to 53 ka respectively. In these time intervals, the plateau was covered by huge interconnected pan‐lake systems with a total area of ∼36000km2 and a total volume of lake water of >530 million km2, which are about 38 times and 659 times larger than those of the modern lakes respectively. Before this pan‐lake period in the late Pleistocene, there had been three high lake levels that occurred at ∼132–112 ka, 110–95 ka and 91–72/∼83–75 ka respectively, suggesting that the late Quaternary climate on the plateau was unstable and changed rapidly. The ∼40–30 ka high lake level also appeared in the Tengger desert north of the plateau, suggesting that there existed very strong summer monsoons from South Asia then; the variation in solar radiation with a 20,000 precessional period has special importance for the high‐altitude Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau in the low‐latitude zone of the Earth. Around 30 ka, the pan‐lakes at the peripheries of the Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau drained out suddenly with rapid uplift of the plateau and cooling. In a short time the huge amount of cold lake water emptied into the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific. The draining event of the pan‐lakes brought about the environmental changes of rivers and lakes at peripheries of the plateau.