Paleomagnetic dating of the topmost terrace in Kouma, Henan and its indication to the Yellow River's running through Sanmen Gorges.

In the east of Xiaolangdi, many river terraces are developed at the exit of the Yellow River Gorges. Among them the terraces in Kouma, Yanshi of Henan Province are most typical, where the Yellow River developed three staircase terraces, among which the altitude of gravel stratum of the topmost terrace is 30-35 m higher than the river level. The top of the gravel stratum was covered by 60 m eolian loess deposits which have many brownish-red paleosol strips. And the paleosol S14 is at its bottom. Research on systematic magnetostratigraphy and paleosol-loess matching indicates that the bottom age of the loess on the topmost terrace is 1165 ka. Therefore, it can be concluded that the terrace develops no later than 1.165 Ma and the situation that the Yellow River runs through Sanmen Gorges and inpours into East China Sea happened at least before 1.165 Ma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]