(Table) Radiocarbon ages of sediment core K02 in Swamp Dahu, Nanling mountains

Humification, in general, is a proxy to describe the degree of decomposition of plant remains. Since the process of decomposition of died plants involves both the local climate and other conditions, so humification can be used to indicate variations of sedimentary environment or paleoclimate. A number of researches have demonstrated that the humification (generally expressed as humification degree, HD) of peat is a useful proxy indicator of past climatic changes, because peat humification is strongly influenced by microorganism activity, conditions of wetness and temperature, pH values of the soil and the type of peat-forming plants, among which the conditions of wetness and temperature are the most important ones. Up to now, almost all the relevant studies concerning the climatic implication of the HD mainly concentrate on the peat deposits, few on the lacustrine or limnological sediments (here refers to sedimentary sequence that is dominated by alternations between the lacustrine and the marshy sediments). However, a recent study points out that for the sediments of Lake Barkol in the extremely arid northeastern Xinjiang, NW China, the HD record can also provide very useful information on Holocene climatic changes. So we think the HD record of limnological sediments has great potentiality for indicating past climatic changes as well. In the paper, we try to test the using of the HD record of a limnological sequence derived in Swamp Dahu to indicate the past climatic changes in South China.