0000000000470469
AUTHOR
Michael Zech
The ELSA-Vegetation-Stack: Reconstruction of Landscape Evolution Zones (LEZ) from laminated Eifel maar sediments of the last 60,000 years
Abstract Laminated sediment records from several maar lakes and dry maar lakes of the Eifel (Germany) reveal the history of climate, weather, environment, vegetation, and land use in central Europe during the last 60,000 years. The time series of the last 30,000 years is based on a continuous varve counted chronology, the MIS3 section is tuned to the Greenland ice — both with independent age control from 14C dates. Total carbon, pollen and plant macrofossils are used to synthesize a vegetation-stack, which is used together with the stacks from seasonal varve formation, flood layers, eolian dust content and volcanic tephra layers to define Landscape Evolution Zones (LEZ). LEZ 1 encompasses t…
How dry was the Younger Dryas? Evidence from a coupled δ2H–δ18O biomarker paleohygrometer applied to the Gemündener Maar sediments, Western Eifel, Germany
Causes of the Late Glacial to Early Holocene transition phase and particularly the Younger Dryas period, i.e. the major last cold spell in central Europe during the Late Glacial, are considered to be keys for understanding rapid natural climate change in the past. The sediments from maar lakes in the Eifel, Germany, have turned out to be valuable archives for recording such paleoenvironmental changes. For this study, we investigated a Late Glacial to Early Holocene sediment core that was retrieved from the Gemündener Maar in the Western Eifel, Germany. We analysed the hydrogen (δ2H) and oxygen (δ18O) stable isotope composition of leaf-wax-derived lipid biomarkers (n-alkanes C27 and C29) and…
Danube loess stratigraphy — Towards a pan-European loess stratigraphic model
The Danube River drainage basin is the second largest river catchment in Europe and contains a significant and extensive region of thick loess deposits that preserve a record of a wide variety of recent and past environments. Indeed, the Danube River and tributaries may themselves be responsible for the transportation of large volumes of silt that ultimately drive loess formation in the middle and lower reaches of this large catchment. However, this vast loess province lacks a unified stratigraphic scheme. European loess research started in the late 17th century in the Danube Basin with the work of Count Luigi Ferdinand Marsigli. Since that time numerous investigations provided the basis fo…
A sugar biomarker proxy for assessing terrestrial versus aquatic sedimentary input
Abstract One of the most important and at the same time most challenging issues in paleolimnological research is the differentiation between terrestrial and aquatic sedimentary organic matter (OM). We therefore investigated the relative abundance of the sugars fucose (fuc), arabinose (ara) and xylose (xyl) from various terrestrial and aquatic plants, as well as from algal samples. Algae were characterized by a higher abundance of fucose than vascular plants. Our results and a compilation of data from the literature suggest that fuc/(ara + xyl) and (fuc + xyl)/ara ratios may serve as complementary proxies in paleolimnological studies for distinguishing between terrestrial and aquatic sedimen…
How dry was the Younger Dryas? Evidence from a coupled <i>δ</i><sup>2</sup>H–<i>δ</i><sup>18</sup>O biomarker paleohygrometer applied to the Gemündener Maar sediments, Western Eifel, Germany
Abstract. Causes of the Late Glacial to Early Holocene transition phase and particularly the Younger Dryas period, i.e. the major last cold spell in central Europe during the Late Glacial, are considered to be keys for understanding rapid natural climate change in the past. The sediments from maar lakes in the Eifel, Germany, have turned out to be valuable archives for recording such paleoenvironmental changes. For this study, we investigated a Late Glacial to Early Holocene sediment core that was retrieved from the Gemündener Maar in the Western Eifel, Germany. We analysed the hydrogen (δ2H) and oxygen (δ18O) stable isotope composition of leaf-wax-derived lipid biomarkers (n-alkanes C27 an…