Search results for "RFA"
showing 10 items of 11106 documents
Mammalian Faunas as Indicators of Environmental and Climatic Changes in Spain during the Pliocene–Quaternary Transition
1999
The study of mammal communities provides useful knowledge of paleoenvironments and paleoclimates during the Quaternary Period, and better documentation about the main fossil sites is making this task easier. Paleoecological reconstructions of this study are based on (i) rodent evolution and species richness, (ii) the cenogram method, and (iii) methods for quantifying climatic parameters. These analyses applied to a Pliocene–Quaternary faunal sequence of Spain indicate that a climatic change occurred at the end of the Pliocene when considerable cooling led to the onset of the glacial–interglacial cycles. Subsequently, during the Quaternary Period, alternating environmental patterns occurred,…
The response of flood-plain ecosystems to the Late Glacial and Early Holocene hydrological changes: A case study from a small Central European river …
2016
Abstract We use a range of environmental variables to explore the possible drivers influencing the biota, especially the composition of aquatic invertebrates, during the Younger Dryas (YD) and Early Holocene (EH) in different river valley sites: a well-developed meandering river and the confluence zone of headwater streams. Using pollen, macrofossil, cladoceran, and chironomid as well as geochemical and lithological data as proxies for environmental factors (i.e., water depth and temperature), we attempt to show that these different sites display similar hydroclimatic signals (especially floods). The geochemical records in the studied valley are correlated with environmental factors, such a…
El Niño variability off Peru during the last 20,000 years
2005
Here we present a high-resolution marine sediment record from the El Nino region off the coast of Peru spanning the last 20,000 years. Sea surface temperature, photosynthetic pigments, and a lithic proxy for El Nino flood events on the continent are used as paleo–El Nino–Southern Oscillation proxy data. The onset of stronger El Nino activity in Peru started around 17,000 calibrated years before the present, which is later than modeling experiments show but contemporaneous with the Heinrich event 1. Maximum El Nino activity occurred during the early and late Holocene, especially during the second and third millennium B.P. The recurrence period of very strong El Nino events is 60–80 years. El…
Age and sedimentary record of inland eolian sediments in Lithuania, NE European Sand Belt
2015
We present a study based on four inland eolian locations in Eastern, Central and Southeastern Lithuania belonging to the northeastern part of the ‘European Sand Belt’ (ESB). Although there have been several previous studies of the ESB, this north-eastern extension has not been investigated before in any detail. The sedimentary structural–textural features are investigated and a chronology was derived using optically stimulated luminescence on both quartz and feldspar. The sedimentary structures and the rounding and surface characteristics of the quartz grains argue for a predominance of eolian transport. Additionally, some structural alternations and a significant contribution of non-eolian…
Oxygen isotope compositions of phosphate from arvicoline teeth and Quaternary climatic changes, Gigny, French Jura
2004
Oxygen isotope compositions of biogenic phosphates from mammals are widely used as proxies of the isotopic compositions of meteoric waters that are roughly linearly related to the air temperature at high- and mid-latitudes. An oxygen isotope fractionation equation was determined by using present-day European arvicoline (rodents) tooth phosphate: δ18Op = 20.98(±0.59) + 0.572(±0.065) δ18Ow. This fractionation equation was applied to the Late Pleistocene karstic sequence of Gigny, French Jura. Comparison between the oxygen isotope compositions of arvicoline tooth phosphate and Greenland ice core records suggests to reconsider the previously established hypothetical chronology of the sequence. …
Carbon and oxygen stable isotope compositions of late Pleistocene mammal teeth from dolines of Ajoie (Northwestern Switzerland)
2014
AbstractFossils of megaherbivores from eight late Pleistocene 14C- and OSL-dated doline infillings of Ajoie (NW Switzerland) were discovered along the Transjurane highway in the Swiss Jura. Carbon and oxygen analyses of enamel were performed on forty-six teeth of large mammals (Equus germanicus, Mammuthus primigenius, Coelodonta antiquitatis, and Bison priscus), coming from one doline in Boncourt (~ 80 ka, marine oxygen isotope stage MIS5a) and seven in Courtedoux (51–27 ka, late MIS3), in order to reconstruct the paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental conditions of the region. Similar enamel δ13C values for both periods, ranging from − 14.5 to − 9.2‰, indicate that the megaherbivores lived i…
Holocene climate and seasonality of shell collection at the Dundas Islands Group, northern British Columbia, Canada—A bivalve sclerochronological app…
2013
article i nfo To analyze environmental changes and the seasonality of shell collection in British Columbia during the Ho- locene, oxygen isotopes were measured from modern and archeological (1337-7438 cal yr BP) shells of the butter clam Saxidomus gigantea. 1697 discrete isotope samples were taken from two modern and 27 arche- ological shells with a high temporal resolution (sub-seasonal up to daily). Archeological shells were collected from five shell midden sites on the Dundas Islands Group, northern British Columbia, Canada. The oxygen iso- tope data reveal clear annual cycles, with the most positive δ 18 Oshell values occurring during the cold season (slower growth, annual growth line f…
The north-eastern aeolian ‘European Sand Belt’ as potential record of environmental changes: A case study from Eastern Latvia and Southern Estonia
2016
Abstract The Latvian and Estonian inland dunes belong to the north-eastern part of the ‘European Sand Belt’ (ESB). These dunes are widely distributed over broad glaciolacustrine plains and Late Glacial alluvial deltas, considered to be potential sources for the aeolian material. Little is known about these aeolian sediments and their substratum; here we present a detailed sedimentary structural and textural characterisation together with a luminescence-based chronology. Through a comparison between grain-size, rounding of quartz grains and surface characteristics in medium/coarse (0.5–0.8 mm) sand, and the light mineral content, we found an alternation of aeolian and periglacial components.…
Summer air temperature, reconstructions from the last glacial stage based on rodents from the site Taillis-des-Coteaux (Vienne), Western France.
2014
AbstractThe oxygen isotope composition of phosphate from tooth enamel of rodents (δ18Op) constitutes a valuable proxy to reconstruct past air temperatures in continental environments. This method has been applied to rodent dental remains from three genera, Arvicola sp., Microtus sp. and Dicrostonyx sp., coming from Taillis-des-Coteaux, Vienne, France. This archaeological site contains an exceptionally preserved sedimentary sequence spanning almost the whole Upper Palaeolithic, including seven stratigraphic layers dated from 35 to 17 cal ka BP. The abundant presence of rodent remains offers the opportunity to quantify the climatic fluctuations coeval of the various stages of human occupation…
High-frequency climate fluctuations over the last deglaciation in the Alboran Sea, Western Mediterranean: Evidence from calcareous plankton assemblag…
2018
Abstract A high resolution study, with a centennial scale resolution, has been performed on the calcareous plankton assemblage (coccolithophores and planktonic foraminifera) at Ocean Drilling Program Site 976, Alboran Sea (Western Mediterranean), focusing on the interval between 20 and 9 ka, in order to reconstruct changes in surface and subsurface water dynamics and productivity. The biotic surface water proxies integrate the extremely detailed (multi-decadal scale) geochemical data set and the pollen record already available at the core, thus providing a complete paleoenvironmental/paleoceanographic reconstruction. The results highlight the sensitivity of the calcareous plankton in record…