This division combines and integrates interdisciplinary studies such as stratigraphy, chronology, sedimentology, mineralogy, geochemistry, paleoecology, and computer modeling in terrestrial depositional sequences of China and adjacent areas. The division aims to elucidate the formation and evolution of Cenozoic environments of these regions and their dynamic links with global change, and to explore the impacts of environmental change on human civilization and those of anthropogenic activities on the natural environment. Major research fields include (1) formation and evolution of arid Asian regions, (2) tectonic influence on the environment, (3) regional Cenozoic paleoecology, and (4) the Anthoropocene environment.

Head of Division:   Prof. Xiao Jule
Deputy Head of Division:   Prof. Sun Jimin

Research Groups and Group Leaders:

Cenozoic sediments and paleoclimates	Prof. Yang Shiling
Quaternary environment	Prof. Guo Zhengtang
Paleoecology	Prof. Lu Houyuan
Lake sediments and environment	Prof. Xiao Jule
Volcanism and environmental evolution	Prof. Guo Zhengfu
Deserts	Prof. Qin Xiaoguang

Current Major Research Projects: 

1. Terrestrial sedimentary records of weathering characteristics during Mesozoic-Cenozoic thermal maxima
2. Evolution and dynamic forcing of paleoenvironments in the Junggar Basin since the Paleocene
3. Land snail record of mid-Miocene ecologic evolution on the Chinese Loess Plateau
4. Reconstructions of the East Asian summer monsoon on the Loess Plateau during the Pliocene and Quaternary interglacials
5. Orbital time-scale evolution of loess deposits and polar ice sheets
6. Dynamic and kinetic environments of dust deposition
7. Large dune formation and climate change in sandy deserts
8. Response of molluscan diversity changes on the Loess Plateau to climate warming
9. Paleotemperature, paleoprecipitation and paleovegetation in climate-sensitive zones during the Holocene
10. Microfossil study of the relations between agricultural incipiency and environmental change in the Yellow River drainage basin
11. Seasonal resolution stalagmite record of drought-flood oscillations in southeastern Yunnan
12. Oxygen isotopic study of diatoms
13. Development of bioproxy-climate transfer functions
14. Sediment transport of large rivers and carbon emissions in Asia
15. Volcanism and climatic impact
16. Numerical simulation of the carbon cycle