从1997年开始对湖北清江和尚洞开展了系统的现代过程监测和地质记录的综合研究,以了解气候和生物信息的传输、转化和记录过程,并由此重建长江中游末次冰期以来的气候和生态环境。通过对和尚洞的大气、植被、土壤、围岩、滴水和沉积碳酸盐开展年代学、水文学、地球化学、地球物理学、地球生物学等多学科的调查,已经积累了许多现代过程的基础资料,为进一步进行石笋记录的研究奠定了很好的基础。同时,研究发现该洞穴石笋具有年代准确、环境和生态信息丰富、分辨率高、记录时间长等众多优点,是重建过去气候和生态变化历史的优质载体。下一步研究应该充分利用这些特点,力争在季风的年际和年代际变化以及不同气候态下环境与生物的相互作用两个方向取得进展。
A combination of monitoring on modern surface processes with investigation on sedimentary re- cords has been conducted in Heshang Cave, Qingjiang Valley, Hubei Province, China since 1997. The program was launched to understand the transportation, transformation, sedimentation and preservation of the climatic and ecological signals within the cave system, and finally to reconstruct the climatic and environmental variations in the middle reaches of Yangtze River since the last glaciation. A huge amount of data are available from chronological, hydrological, geochemical, geophysical and geobiological investigations on climate, vegetation, soil, bedrock, dripping waters and calcite precipitated in the cave system. These data on modern surface processes favor the paleo-reconstruction. Speleothems in the cave are found to show the records featured by precise dating, high-resolution covering a long period and a variety of envi- ronmental and ecological information, and thus would be the ideal archive for the paleo-reconstructions. Investigations on the monsoon variation on interannual and interdecadal scales and on the interaction between climate and organisms under the various climatic states will be emphasized in near future.