Abstract:Mineral magnetic measurement can contribute to lake sediment studies in a wide variety of ways,ranging from analysis of sediment sources to understanding of the response of lake sediments to climate change.The magnetic susceptibility (X) and the frequency dependent susceptibility (Xfd) curves of two short sediment cores from Qinghai Lake (QL5) and Daihai Lake (DH32). spanning respectively the last 500 and 300 years,have been made. It is interesting that the variations in Xfd(%) approximately coincide with those of geochemical and grain size analysis data. Additionally,due to the variation of magnetic mineral content >type and magnetic grain size controlled mainly by the processes of weathering, pedogenesis,erosion and so on,the curves (especially Xfd (%) curves) have all shown considerable regular alternations of wave peaks and troughs, implying climatic fluctuations in different time scales during historical period in the two areas. These results indicate that the magnetic parameters of lake sediments,especially their frequency dependent susceptibility are sensitive to paleoclimatic fluctuation and can provide us important information about climate change.