Abstract: The carbon and oxygen isotopic composition of the land snail shell can record environmental and climate information, which are important proxies for reconstructing paleoenvironment and paleoclimate. In this paper, we added the land snails’ data in Xinjiang (controlled by the westerly zone), western Sichuan (controlled by the Indian monsoon), and northeast (north end of the East Asian monsoon) under different climate conditions, analyzing the carbon and oxygen isotope composition of snail shells and combining with previous published data. The distribution and climate response of carbon and oxygen isotope composition of land snail shells in China have been evaluated. The results showed that the relationships between the carbon isotope composition of snail shells and mean annual precipitation or relative humidity are negative, whereas the relationships between the carbon isotope composition of snail shells and mean annual evaporation amount or aridity index are positive nationwide. The carbon isotope of snail shells with annual average temperature (larger than 9.5℃ ) has a negative correlation. There is no significant relationship between the oxygen isotope composition of snail shells and five climate factors, which may be caused by the different response degrees of snail shell oxygen isotope in different monsoon regions, or caused by the contrary correlations between the oxygen isotope of the snail shell and temperature in different regions. Hence the carbon isotope of snail shells can reliably record the carbon isotope variation of C3 vegetation by effective precipitation, the interpretation of the snail shell’s oxygen isotope is still unclear, and needing more studies in the future.

Key words: land snail shell, carbon and oxygen isotopic composition, climate variables, environmental response