Search results for "Glacial period"
showing 10 items of 196 documents
Pleistocene paleoenvironmental reconstructions and mammalian evolution in South-East Asia: focus on fossil faunas from Thailand.
2006
16 pages; International audience; Mammalian faunal studies have provided various clues for a better reconstruction of hominid Quaternary paleoenvironments. Inthis work, two methods were used: (1) the cenogram method, based on a graphical representation of the mammalian communitystructure, and (2) the species richness of murine rodents to estimate climatic parameters. These methods were applied to Middle andLate Pleistocene mammalian faunas of South-East Asia, from South China to Indonesia. Special emphasis was laid on a fauna fromnorth-east Thailand dated back to approximately 170,000 years (i.e. a glacial period). This Thai fauna seems characteristic of aslightly open forested environment …
Diving into the Past: A Paleo Data–Model Comparison Workshop on the Late Glacial and Holocene
2019
Understanding changes in the climate of the late Pleistocene and the Holocene has long been a research topic. Studies rely on different sources of information, ranging from terrestrial and marine archives to a hierarchy of climate modeling activities. In contrast to the climate of the last millennium, novel approaches are necessary to bridge the different temporal and spatial representations of the various archives and the climate models, and to achieve a robust understanding of climate variability and climate processes on centennial-to-millennial time scales.
Late Quaternary palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of sediment drift accumulation in the Malta Graben (central Mediterranean Sea)
2018
The Malta Graben is a deep tectonic depression in the Sicily Channel, bounded by NW-SE normal faults and filled by thick Pliocene-Quaternary deposits. A previous analysis of a giant piston core (LC09) from the Malta Graben had revealed a wide range of sedimentary features (carbonate turbidites, bioturbated mud and scours), although the chronostratigraphic constraint of the stacking pattern has remained elusive. After establishing a reliable chronological framework based on seven radiocarbon dates for a shorter core from the Malta Graben (ANSIC03-735), a down-core analysis of planktonic foraminifer and coccolith abundance, stable isotopes and sediment grain size was carried out. Since the la…
A low seasonality scenario in the Mediterranean Sea during the Calabrian (Early Pleistocene) inferred from fossil Arctica islandica shells
2017
Understanding past seasonal temperature variability in the ocean is essential to evaluate the effects of future climate change on marine ecosystems. Here, we estimate seasonal water temperature amplitudes from stable oxygen isotope (δ18Oshell) values of fossil shells of Arctica islandica (assuming δ18Owater= + 0.9 ± 0.1â° V-SMOW). Specimens were collected from three Pleistocene successions (Emilian and Sicilian substages of the Calabrian) in Central and Southern Italy (i.e., Rome, Lecce and Sicily). Biostratigraphic analyses from Rome Quarry deposits indicate an age between 1.6 and 1.2 Ma, whereas Sicily and Lecce successions are slightly more recent (between 1.1 and 0.62 Ma). Prior to …
The Late Ordovician glacial sedimentary system of the North Gondwana platform.
2009
International audience; The Late Ordovician (Hirnantian) glaciation is examined through the North Gondwana record. This domain extended from southern high palaeo-latitudes (southeastern Mauritania, Niger) to northern lower palaeo-latitudes (Morocco, Turkey) and covered a more than 4000 km-wide section perpendicular to ice-flow lines. A major mid-Hirnantian deglaciation event subdividing the Hirnantian glaciation in two first-order cycles is recognised. As best illustrated by the glacial record in western Libya, each cycle comprises 2-3 glacial phases separated by ice-front retreats several hundreds kilometres to the south. From ice-proximal to ice-distal regions, the number of glacial surfa…
The ELSA-Flood-Stack: A reconstruction from the laminated sediments of Eifel maar structures during the last 60 000 years
2016
Abstract This study reconstructs the main flood phases in central Europe from event layers in sediment cores from Holocene Eifel maar lakes and Pleistocene dry maar structures. These reconstructions are combined with recent gauge time-series to cover the entire precipitation extremes of the last 60 000 years. In general, Eifel maar sediments are perfectly suited for the preservation of event layers since the deep water in the maar lakes is seasonal anoxic and therefore, bioturbation is low. However, the preservation of annual lamination is only preserved in Holzmaar and Ulmener Maar; the other cores are dated by 14C, magnetostratigraphy, tephra markers and ice core tuning. The cores were dr…
Coarsely crystalline cryogenic cave carbonate – a new archive to estimate the Last Glacial minimum permafrost depth in Central Europe
2012
Abstract. Cryogenic cave carbonate (CCC) represents a specific type of speleothem whose precipitation is triggered by freezing of mineralized karst water. Coarsely crystalline CCC, which formed during slow freezing of water in cave pools, has been reported from 20 Central European caves located in Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. All these caves are situated in an area which was glacier-free during the Weichselian. Whereas the formation of usual types of speleothems in caves of this region usually ceased during the glacials, coarsely crystalline CCC precipitation was restricted to glacial periods. Since this carbonate type represents a novel, useful paleoclimate proxy, data…
Pre-Hirnantian (latest Ordovician) benthic community assemblages: controls and replacements in a siliciclastic-dominated platform of the eastern Anti…
2007
17 pages; International audience; Lower-middle Ashgill sedimentary strata from the Mediterranean region have recorded a key episode of temperate-to-cold water, carbonate productivity predating the onset of the Hirnantian glaciation. The latitudinal position of the Moroccan margin of North Gondwana during Ashgill should have been adequate for the recorded development of carbonate factories. However, carbonate productivity was neither homogeneous nor laterally persistent, as documented in the eastern Anti-Atlas. Whereas in the Erfoud area, the bryozoan-dominated limestones of the Ashgill Khabt-el-Hajar Formation indicate the intensive activity of carbonate factories, these were dramatically r…
Quartz OSL dating of late quaternary Chinese and Serbian loess: A cross Eurasian comparison of dust mass accumulation rates
2019
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. Reconstructing dust Mass Accumulation Rate (MAR) from loess deposits is critical to understanding past atmospheric mineral dust activity and requires accurate independent age models from loess deposits across Europe and Asia. Previous correlations of loess in Europe and China have tended to focus on multi-millennial timescales, with no detailed examination of dust MAR at the two ends of the Eurasian loess belt on shorter, sub-orbital scales. Here we present a detailed quartz optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) chronology from the Serbian Titel Loess Plateau (Veliki Surduk loess core) and the Chinese Loess Plateau (Lingtai section). The luminescence ages pa…
Fire–vegetation relationships during the last glacial cycle in a low mountain range (Eifel, Germany)
2021
Abstract Lake sediments can provide useful archives to reconstruct past vegetation changes or fire history. To comprehend how vegetation and fire history have correlated during the last 130,000 years, we used two lake sediment records with known patterns of pollen and botanical macro remains and supplemented this data by analyses of lignin-derived phenols as markers for local vegetation inputs and by benzene polycarboxylic acids (BPCAs) as markers for total fire residue inputs (black carbon, BC). The two sediment archives originated from two maar lakes in the Eifel, which is part of the low mountain ranges in central Germany. A lignin-derived phenol index showed woody angiosperms and gymnos…