Search results for "PLEISTOCENE"
showing 10 items of 298 documents
Influence of the Plio-Pleistocene tectonics on the evolution of the Purgatorio polje (north-western Sicily)
2013
The evolution of large landforms such as polje are related in most cases to geological events affecting a specific areal context and/or to climatic events which, in combination with the tectonics, affect the karst base level, in a more or less pronounced manner depending on the proximity of limestone karst mountains to the coastline. The genesis of these aforementioned forms depends primarily on structural and lithological factors, their evolution is instead controlled by tectonic and climaticeustatic factors in the reliefs close to the coast. In the inland, due to the distance from the coast, the effects of the latter factors on the karstification process could be less, or very bland, in r…
A reappraisal of the Early to Middle Pleistocene Italian Bovidae
2013
Abstract During the Quaternary, bovids are common elements in the Italian local faunal assemblages (LFAs). Representatives of Bovini tribe are continuously present, albeit with different lineages. Caprini are sporadically recorded by several genera, and Antilopini are less represented, only during the Early Pleistocene in the middle and early late Villafranchian local faunal assemblages (LFAs). Diversity and ecological role of continental representatives of Italian Bovidae varied with LFAs as well as in faunal units (FUs) throughout the Early and Middle Pleistocene. Species richness and diversity peaked during the early late Villafranchian land mammal age (LMA) and then decreased in the pos…
The Pleistocene subterranean volesTerricola (Rodentia) of Serbia and Montenegro
2001
A general morphometrical analysis of the M1 was conducted to identify the subterranean vole species found in Upper Pleistocene localities from Serbia and Montenegro, and to clarify the systematic position and the phylogenetic relationships between the different species in the Balkans. From the different localities studied, we can assign one population toMicrotus (Terricola) thomasi and the others to theM. (T.) subterraneus group. This study suggests thatM. (T.) grafi can be considered as a chronological sub-species ofM. (T.) subterraneus or as a different but phylogenetically very close species.
Aegopinella bourdieri nov. sp. (Gastropoda: Zonitidae),une espèce nouvelle du Pléistocène normand (France)
1989
St Pierre-les-Elbeuf (Normandy, NE France) is a reference site for the middle and the upper Pleistocene of NW France. In the eastern part of the quarry, the paleosoils Elbeuf III and IV are truncated, white sands and a small tufa lay on Elbeuf IV. Similar deposits have been recognized at Vernon (Seine valley) and at Arrest (northern France). They are probably contemporaneous (Holsteinian) and each of them has yielded an interglacial malacological fauna. The faunal communities are interesting because they are composed by species living up to now in this country, by emigrated species and by fossil species. Among them, A. bourdieri is a new fossil taxa, endemic of Holsteinian tufas of Normandy…
Late Quaternary nearshore molluscan patterns from Patagonia: Windows to southern southwestern Atlantic-Southern Ocean palaeoclimate and biodiversity …
2019
Varied approaches (palaeobiodiversity, palaeobiogeography, bioerosion, geochemistry) to unique Patagonian late Quaternary molluscan assemblages in the southwestern Atlantic, with ages especially from interglacial Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5e and MIS 1, provide large-scale and long-temporal palaeoenvironmental data for the southern SWA. Together with new patterns of δ18O and δ13C variations in modern, mid-Holocene, and Late to Middle Pleistocene shells of Protothaca antiqua (Bivalvia) and the coeval Pleistocene Tegula atra (Gastropoda), the overall sources of evidence illustrate possible responses to recent palaeoclimate and sea-ice changes around the southernmost SWA-western Antarctica, le…
A 5500-year oxygen isotope record of high arctic environmental change from southern Spitsbergen
2017
The oxygen isotope composition of chironomid head capsules in a sediment core spanning the past 5500 years from Lake Svartvatnet in southern Spitsbergen was used to reconstruct the oxygen isotope composition of lake water (δ18Olw) and local precipitation. The δ18Olw values display shifts from the baseline variability consistent with the timing of recognized historical climatic episodes, such as the Roman Warm Period, the Dark Ages Cold Period and the ‘Little Ice Age’. The highest values of the record, ca. 3‰ above modern δ18Olw values, occur at ca. 1900–1800 cal. yr BP. Three negative excursions increasing in intensity toward the present, at 3400–3200, 1250–1100, and 350–50 cal. yr BP, are…
Towards a dendrochronologically refined date of the Laacher See eruption around 13,000 years ago
2020
Highlights • Previous age estimates of the Laacher See Eruptions (LSE) around 12,900 years are still diverging and imprecise. • The combination of dendrochronology, wood anatomy, and 14C measurements holds the potential to establish a precise LSE date. • An absolute calendric date of the LSE would improve the synchronization of European Late Glacial to Holocene archives. Abstract The precise date of the Laacher See eruption (LSE), central Europe’s largest Late Pleistocene volcanic event that occurred around 13,000 years ago, is still unknown. Here, we outline the potential of combined high-resolution dendrochronological, wood anatomical and radiocarbon (14C) measurements, to refine the age …
Subsistence strategies throughout the African Middle Pleistocene: Faunal evidence for behavioral change and continuity across the Earlier to Middle S…
2018
Abstract The African Middle Pleistocene (781–126 ka) is a key period for human evolution, witnessing both the origin of the modern human lineage and the lithic turnover from Earlier Stone Age (ESA) Acheulean bifacial tools to Middle Stone Age (MSA) prepared core and point technologies. This ESA/MSA transition is interpreted as representing changing landscape use with greater foraging distances and more active hunting strategies. So far, these behavioral inferences are mainly based on the extensive stone tool record, with only a minor role for site-based and regional faunal studies. To provide additional insights into these behavioral changes, this paper details a pan-African metastudy of 63…
Middle to Upper Pleistocene morphostructural evolution of the NW-coast of Sicily: thermoluminescence dating and palaeontological-stratigraphical eval…
1997
Abstract Infralittoral and terrigenous Middle to Upper Pleistocene deposits outcropping at the NW-coast of Sicily (Gulf of Castellammare and peninsula of Capo San Vito) were investigated in order to recognise glacio-eustatically caused sea level highstands and the interference between tectonics, eustasy and local conditions of the coast. The results, originating from a stratigraphically important area, were obtained by palaeontological-stratigraphical analyses, physical age determination with the thermoluminescence method and by detailed morphostructural studies. The marine deposits, situated at 3–40 m a.s.l., mainly provide an oligotypic molluscan fauna referable to modern SGCF-, SFHN- and…
Chronology for the Cueva Victoria fossil site (SE Spain): Evidence for Early Pleistocene Afro-Iberian dispersals
2014
Cueva Victoria has provided remains of more than 90 species of fossil vertebrates, including a hominin phalanx, and the only specimens of the African cercopithecid Theropithecus oswaldi in Europe. To constrain the age of the vertebrate remains we used paleomagnetism, vertebrate biostratigraphy and (230)Th/U dating. Normal polarity was identified in the non-fossiliferous lowest and highest stratigraphic units (red clay and capping flowstones) while reverse polarity was found in the intermediate stratigraphic unit (fossiliferous breccia). A lower polarity change occurred during the deposition of the decalcification clay, when the cave was closed and karstification was active. A second polarit…