KFU researchers train at China’s State Key Laboratory of Loess Science
Dilyara Kuzina and Anastasia Yusupova, researchers at the Laboratory of Generation, Storage and Transportation of Hydrogen and Low-Carbon Energy Carriers of the Institute of Geology and Petroleum Technologies, are currently completing a research internship at the State Key Laboratory of Loess Science of the Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in Xi’an, China.
The trip was made possible by grants from the Government of the Republic of Tatarstan under the Algarysh program. Leading researcher Dilyara Kuzina won this year’s award in the Lecturers and Researchers category, while Anastasia Yusupova, a senior researcher at the same laboratory, took the prize in the Young Scientists category.
“The internship, during which we are dating lake sediments and studying their magnetic properties to reconstruct climate change, began on 24 August and will run until 18 September. We are working alongside Professor Ao Hong, one of China’s leading specialists in rock magnetism and palaeomagnetism, whose research focuses on loess deposits as a means of analysing changes in the Earth’s magnetic field and paleoclimate, as well as on the question of human dispersal across the planet,” Kuzina explained.
The State Key Laboratory of Loess Science specialises in the study of silty deposits. Particularly thick and continuous layers of such rocks are found on China’s Loess Plateau. These geological sections serve as a valuable “archive”: from them, scientists reconstruct the picture of the Earth’s climate, ecology and geological history.
Kuzina and Yusupova share a common research focus: the study of lake sediments in order to reconstruct past climates and to trace changes in the Earth’s magnetic field over the past millennia.
“During the internship we are learning to work with instruments that our laboratory does not yet have. One of them is a vibrating sample magnetometer, designed to determine hysteresis parameters – coercivity, saturation magnetisation and remanent magnetisation. The second is the MPMS (Magnetic Property Measurement System), which makes it possible to measure magnetic parameters at ultra-low temperatures. In addition, we are dating lake sediments using radiocarbon (¹⁴C) and gamma dating (¹³⁷Cs and ²¹⁰Pb). This allows us to build a more precise chronology and to correlate changes in the magnetic properties of lake sediments with different stages of sedimentation and climate change,” Yusupova said.
Ao Hong has been collaborating with researchers from the laboratory since 2024.
“The professor has spent many years working on loess, lake sediments and paleoclimate, and his experience helps us take a fresh look at our data and interpret it. This year we submitted a joint application for a Russian Science Foundation grant. We are eagerly awaiting the results, which will be announced in November. In conversations with our Chinese colleagues, we discussed the possibility of carrying out our further research at the State Key Laboratory of Loess Science,” Kuzina added.
During the internship, the two researchers are also becoming acquainted with China’s rich culture and landmarks. They plan to visit unique geological sites, including Zhangjiajie National Park in the north-west of Hunan Province, famous for its quartz sandstone pillars formed by prolonged weathering and erosion.