DETERMINATION OF THE GLACIAL STAGE AND EPIGLACIAL STAGE AND ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TALAHULUN FORMATION IN NORTHWESTERN HEBEI

This paper describes glacial remains and the epiglacial phenomenon found for the first time in the Bashang area of northwestern Hebei. The glacial stage and epiglacial stage since the Middle Pleistocene have been determined and named the Talahulun glacial stage and Liujiaying epiglacial stage. The former may be correlated with the Lushan glacial stage, while the latter is equivalent to the late Dali’an glacial substage. The traditional view advocates that in the late Late Pleistocene, the climate in northern China was dry and cold, but a study of the epiglacial phenomenon indicates that there appeared a very humid cold stage in the late Late Pleistocene. The author has established a new lithostratigraphic unit—the Talahulun Formation, which is located above the Chicheng Formation and below the Malan Formation and whose age is late Middle Pleistocene.