Present Situation and Prospects of Researches on Weathering Crust
风化壳研究的现状与展望

Weathering crust is an interaction interface between the lithosphere, the atmosphere, the hydrosphere and biosphere, and thus keeps abundant information concerning the evolution of the Earth's multi spheres. It is a traditional work to reconstruct palaeogeographical conditions according to the zonal principle and the signals distilled from the weathering crust. Recent successful application of the laser 40 Ar/ 39 Ar dating technique of single crystal and "double surface" model to weathering study pioneers a new aspect of research on global change. The synthetical study of weathering crust can not only yield high resolving records of environmental change in denudation areas of continents, which provide a wide perspective for comparison of weathering episodes (events) with others global tectonic climate events, but also redound to an accurate quantification of weathering processes, which is in favor of a profound understanding of coupling relationship between tectonics, weathering, denudation and climate and an appropriate estimation of human impact on future climate.