High‐resolution terrestrial record of orbital climate forcing in the coal‐bearing Middle Jurassic Yan'an Formation, Ordos Basin, North China

The coal‐bearing Yan'an Formation in the Ordos Basin of the Middle Jurassic was deposited in a river delta–lacustrine sedimentary environment with relatively stable accumulation rates. Spectral analysis and wavelet transform analysis of the natural gamma‐ray (GR) curves from several boreholes through the Yan'an Formation yielded five main sedimentary cycles with wavelengths of 34–57, 10–18, 8–14, 2.9–4.1, and 2–3 m. These cycles were controlled by orbital cycles of eccentricity (405, 128, and 97 kyr), obliquity (35 kyr), and precession (22 kyr), and the long‐eccentricity period of 405 kyr was the most significant cycle. Filtering the sedimentary records for the long‐wavelength cycle and short‐wavelength cycle implies that there are 11 long‐eccentricity cycles and 35 short‐eccentricity cycles preserved in the Yan'an Formation. Assigning the 405 kyr long‐eccentricity cycle to the filtered 11 primary long‐wavelength cycles implies that the Yan'an Formation spanned 4.4 Myr. The orbital–climate cycles were critical factors in the sediment facies changes and episodes of coal formation within the basin. The long‐eccentricity cycles of the Milankovitch cycle are the predominant control factors of the coal seams deposited in the Middle Jurassic Yan'an Formation.