A map of Pleistocene aeolian deposits in Western Europe, with special emphasis on France
Résumé
he Land Use and Cover Area frame Statistical survey (LUCAS) database on topsoil properties in
Europe was used to map aeolian deposits. The points which satisfy the grain-size criteria of coversands, loess and
transitional facies were extracted from the rasters of predicted soil texture established by kriging of the LUCAS data
by Ballabio et al. (2016). A comparison with already available maps, derived from a conventional field approach,
shows a good fit in most of the tested areas. The new map, however, suggests a greater extension of loess, which
seems related to the inclusion of thin loess covers, usually omitted by conventional mapping, and the presence of
previously unmapped areas due to lack of survey or misinterpretation. The main source of aeolian particles
corresponds to glacio-fluvial sediments at the margin of the Scandinavian and Alpine ice sheets. Coversands and
loess form a broad band across northern Europe, and in the Rh^one, Rhine and Danube valleys. Large areas on the
outskirts of these deposits also received a significant loess contribution, which has been reworked in slope deposits.
Conversely, southern Europe is characterized by much less loess accumulation. The Atlantic coast has transgressive
dune fields that penetrate inland to varying degree