• Journal of The Geomorphological Association of Korea
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.1-16
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• 2010

Phytoliths, silica microfossil that produced within and between cells and tissues of plants are especially yielded in Gramineae with many different forms and can attribute to the reconstruction of climatic and environmental changes and agriculture activity of the Quaternary. The phytoliths in soil can remain for long periods of time, because of strong resistance to physical and chemical weathering. The spatial range of study is too small due to deposition of phytoliths directly to the soil. There are difficulties of phytoliths identification because of multiplicity and redundancy, so far uniform and exact classification scheme has not been adopted. Therefore we attempted phytolith classification system applied to Korea. The paleoenvironmental reconstruction research using phytholith are applicated in many parts of studies. Also high-resolution paleoclimatic reconstruction expected to be possible using phytolith indices of Iph and Ic as well as climatic indicator of phytolith morphology.