Selected Grain-Size and Geochemical Analyses of the Loess-Paleosol Sequence of Pécel (Northern Hungary): An Attempt to Determine Sediment Accumulation Conditions and the Source Area Location

Abstract

The loess-paleosol profile near the settlement of Pécel has a notable size among the loess-paleosol sequences of the Northern Carpathian territories. Therefore, comprehensive sedimentological examinations were performed to understand the profile and the information preserved in it. The past periodicity and intensity of winds were showed by particle composition studies (GSI, U-ratio). At least two source areas can be presumed based on geochemical indices (CIA, CIW, Rb/Sr, Zr/Rb). Based on the characteristics of the chemical composition of sulphide minerals (P, S, Pb, Ni, As sulphides), the lower 10 m of the profile was supposed to be transported from the NW direction (Buda Thermal Karst, Börzsöny, Cserhát). Sufficient information is not yet available in order to determine the source area of the upper 10 m. By using the mentioned indexes, major developing and weathering horizons also could be identified.

Development History of the Loess–Paleosol Profiles of Pécel, Kisdorog and Bonyhádvarasd, Hungary

“…The upper 18.72 m of the loess-paleosol profile of Pécel was previously studied and published [22], thus, only the newly obtained results are presented in this paper (Figure 2).…”

“…The coordinates of the Bonyhádvarasd section of 8.16 m height are 46°21′52″ N The excavation of the loess-paleosol profile of Pécel was completed in 2022. Prior to this, its preliminary results were reported in 2021 [22]. The total height of this section is 25.72 m, of which the actual loess deposit was 24.56 m. The sediments (thickness: 51 cm) below this loess section can be considered as the sediments of the former Rákos stream, which recently can be found 300-350 m south of the loess wall.…”

“…The four profiles examined in this study can be found in two different geographical regions of Hungary (Figure 1). One of them can be found in the vicinity of the town Pécel in the Gödöllő hills area [1] in a foothill location (e.g., [2][3][4][5][6]), while the other three profiles are located in the Tolna hills [7] in a lowland location (e.g., [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]). In addition to the one in Pécel, two of the examined sections are located in Kisdorog and one in Bonyhádvarasd, 130-140 km away from Pécel.…”

“…Detailed pieces of information on the loess sequences of the Carpathian Basin are available (e.g., [2,3,6,[8][9][10][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]), however, the sections we examined have not been studied before, thus, the data extracted from them could provide excellent additional information about the paleoclimate and regional mosaicism of the area. Several profiles have been studied along the River Danube [2,14,15,18], the data of which were supplemented by data from southern Hungary [6,[8][9][10]12,13], northern Hungary [3][4][5]22], Transdanubia [6,11,14,15], and data derived from drillings [23,24]. The excavation of the loess-paleosol profile of Pécel was completed in 2022.…”

Early–Middle Pleistocene Magnetostratigraphic and Rock Magnetic Records of the Dolynske Section (Lower Danube, Ukraine) and Their Application to the Correlation of Loess–Palaeosol Sequences in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe

“…The Ukrainian loess series were investigated by a multi-proxy approach in ~70 main profiles and at more than a thousand additional sites for the last hundred years [47,48,51,54,55,57,58,150,155,157,, which allowed for constructing a detailed national stratigraphic framework [157,178,[196][197][198]. The adjacent Lower Danube and Middle Danube Basins are also important loess regions, which have provided excellent archives for long-term high-resolution palaeoclimate studies [8,9,[13][14][15][16]18,19,22,[26][27][28][29][30]34,106,113,114,130,[199][200][201][202][203]. A lack of reliable data from the Budzhak, southern Ukrainian region lying along the Black Sea between the Danube and Dniester rivers, which is exceptionally rich in most complete Quaternary sequences, reduces the quality of overall stratigraphic correlations [15,[204][205][206][207] and palaeoclimatic...…”