New aspects of the interpretation of the loess magnetic fabric, C  erna Valley succession, Hungary Bal  azs Brad  ak-Hayashi a, b, * , Tam  as Bir  o c , Erzs  ebet Horv  ath c , Tam  as V  egh c , G  abor Csillag d a Department of Planetology, Kobe University,1-1, Rokkodai-cho, Nada-ku, Kobe, Hyogo, 657-8501, Japan b Geographical Institute, Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences (HAS), 45 Buda€ orsi St., H-1112, Budapest, Hungary c Department of Physical Geography, E€ otv€ os Lor and University, 1/C P azm any P. St, H-1117, Budapest, Hungary d Geological and Geophysical Institute of Hungary, 14 Stef ania St., H-1143, Budapest, Hungary article info Article history: Received 9 November 2015 Available online xxx Keywords: Microfabric Directional fabric Photostatistics Image analysis Visible grain fabric Micromorphology Magnetic fabric abstract Anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) is a frequently applied method in sedimentology, especially in the determination of the orientation of transport processes. We present an analysis of magnetic fabric (MF) studies on loess. New aspects of fabric development reveal: i) The deposition of the aeolian sedi- ments was controlled by gravity, low-energy transport and local geomorphology, hence no clarified wind direction can be defined. ii) The influence of phyllosilicates is also significant among the magnetic components. iii) While the primary MF is relatively well-defined, the secondary MF is influenced by several processes. The analysis of stereoplots combined with the qeb diagram and photostatistics showed encouraging results during the characterization of various secondary MF such as redeposited MF and pedogenic fabric. iv) Changes in processes from aeolian to water-lain deposition and the increasing transportation energy were reflected by the connection between AMS and observed micro-scale sedi- mentary features. v) A relationship was obvious between the degree of pedogenesis and the trans- formation of sedimentary MF into a vertical MF typical for paleosols. vi) The significant role of very fine grained magnetite on the formation of inverse MF could not be excluded. © 2016 University of Washington. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Introduction There are two different main points of view on defining the primary (wind-blown, aeolian) magnetic fabrics (MF) of loess. Derbyshire et al. (1988) suggested that the fabric of aeolian loess is isotropic, and every anisotropy detected in the fabric is related to secondary processes. Hus (2003) and Wang and Løvlie (2010) pointed out that the gravitational force and compaction play the main role in developing the primary MF of loess. In contrast to this theory, many studies have altered this perspective: the MF of ‘wind-blown’ loess is supposed to be anisotropic and the orientation of k max (maximum magnetic sus- ceptibility) is fingerprinted by syn-depositional paleowind direc- tion (e.g., Beg et et al., 1990; Thistlewood and Sun, 1991; Sun et al., 1995; Wu et al., 1998; Lagroix and Banerjee, 2002, 2004; Zhu et al., 2004; Brad ak, 2009; Zhang et al., 2010; Liu and Sun, 2012). Deviation of the inclination of k min (minimum magnetic sus- ceptibility) from vertical has been used to separate the fabrics of undisturbed (where wind-blown, the inclination of k min is less than 20  ) from redeposited/reworked loess (e.g., Zhu et al., 2004). However, the pronounced deviation of k min from vertical is not necessarily the result of redeposition. If the sedimentation occurred on a slope, the dip direction of the paleosurface could be identified by the alignment of the principal susceptibilities: by the tilt of the k min directions from the vertical and by the inclination of the plane defined by the intermixed k max and k int (intermediate magnetic susceptibility) axes from the horizontal plane (e.g., Rees, 1966, 1971; Brad ak et al., 2011; Brad ak and Kov acs, 2014; Ge et al., 2014). A similar tilting of the foliation plane might also be the result of imbrication in the mass-flow just prior to the emplacement. In this case, the alignment of the principal susceptibilities show an a-axis type imbrication (elongated grains tend to align parallel with the transport direction and showing an upflow tilting). * Corresponding author. Department of Planetology, Kobe University, 1-1, Rokkodai-cho, Nada-ku, Kobe, Hyogo, 657-8501, Japan. E-mail address: bradak.b@people.kobe-u.ac.jp (B. Brad ak-Hayashi). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary Research journal homepage: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/quaternary-research http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yqres.2016.07.007 0033-5894/© 2016 University of Washington. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Quaternary Research xxx (2016) 1e11 Please cite this article in press as: Brad ak-Hayashi, B., et al., New aspects of the interpretation of the loess magnetic fabric, C erna Valley succession, Hungary, Quaternary Research (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yqres.2016.07.007