Search results for "STAGE"
showing 10 items of 1393 documents
A stalactite record of four relative sea-level highstands during the Middle Pleistocene Transition
2017
International audience; Ice-sheet and sea-level fluctuations during the Early and Middle Pleistocene are as yet poorly understood. A stalactite from a karst cave in North West Sicily (Italy) provides the first evidence of four marine inundations that correspond to relative sea-level highstands at the time of the Middle Pleistocene Transition. The speleothem is located ∼97 m above mean sea level as result of Quaternary uplift. Its section reveals three marine hiatuses and a coral overgrowth that fixes the age of final marine ingression at 1.124 ± 0.2, thus making this speleothem the oldest stalactite with marine hiatuses ever studied to date. Scleractinian coral species witness light-limited…
Evidence of warm and humid interstadials in central Europe during early MIS 3 revealed by a multi-proxy speleothem record
2018
Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3, 57-27 ka) was characterised by numerous rapid climate oscillations (i.e., Dansgaard-Oeschger (D/O-) events), which are reflected in various climate archives. So far, MIS 3 speleothem records from central Europe have mainly been restricted to caves located beneath temperate Alpine glaciers or close to the Atlantic Ocean. Thus, MIS 3 seemed to be too cold and dry to enable speleothem growth north of the Alps in central Europe. Here we present a new speleothem record from Bunker Cave, Germany, which shows two distinct growth phases from 52.0 (+0.8, -0.5) to 50.9 (+0.6, -1.3) ka and 473 (+1.0, -0.6) to 42.8 (+/- 0.9) ka, rejecting this hypothesis. These two growth…
Last Interglacial Hydroclimate Seasonality Reconstructed From Tropical Atlantic Corals
2018
The seasonality of hydroclimate during past periods of warmer than modern global temperatures is a critical component for understanding future climate change scenarios. Although only partially analogous to these scenarios, the last interglacial (LIG, Marine Isotope Stage 5e, ~127–117 ka) is a popular test bed. We present coral δ18O monthly resolved records from multiple Bonaire (southern Caribbean) fossil corals (Diploria strigosa) that date to between 130 and 118 ka. These records represent up to 37 years and cover a total of 105 years, offering insights into the seasonality and characteristics of LIG tropical Atlantic hydroclimate. Our coral δ18O records and available coral Sr/Ca-sea surf…
Coping with arid environments: A critical threshold for human expansion in Europe at the Marine Isotope Stage 12/11 transition? The case of the Iberi…
2020
Abstract Archaeological remains have highlighted the fact that the interglacial Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11 was a threshold from the perspective of hominin evolution in Europe. After the MIS 12 glaciation, considered one of the major climate-driven crises experienced by hominins, the archaeological records show an increasing number of occupations, evidence of new subsistence behaviors, and significant technical innovations. Here, we used statistical and geographic techniques to analyze the amphibian- and reptile-based paleoclimate and habitat reconstructions generated from a large data set of the Iberian Peninsula to (1) investigate if temperature, precipitation, and/or forest cover may h…
Suborbital climate variability during Marine Isotopic Stage 5 in the central Mediterranean basin: evidence from calcareous plankton record
2006
Abstract New faunal and floral records from Ocean Drilling Project Hole 963A, resolved at ∼80-year spacing, provide evidence of suborbital scale climate variability in the central Mediterranean Sea throughout Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5. Cold events in the central Mediterranean Sea, indicated by low abundances of warm species and high abundances of cold species, are also evident in a planktonic foraminifera paleoclimatic curve. They have been linked to NGRIP Greenland ice core “C” events and appear correlative with similar sub-millennial climate fluctuations identified in the North Atlantic region and in the Alboran Basin (Westernmost Mediterranean). Low-resolution benthic and planktonic O…
Palaeoenvironmental changes in the arid and subarid belt (Sahara-Sahel-Arabian peninsula) from 150 kyr to present
2004
The PEP III Arid to Subarid Belt includes the largest hot desert in the world, the Sahara- Arabian desert and the Sahel zone. The region of interest extends south of the Atlas Mountains and south and east of the Mediterranean Sea to approximately 10 °N and shows a broadly zonal pattern with a varying seasonal distribution of precipitation. In the north (ca. 20–23 °N), rainfall results from the southward displacement of the midlatitude westerlies during winter whereas the south is governed by seasonal northward migration of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ). Contraction and expansion phases of these presently semi-arid to hyper-arid desert areas result from significant changes in loc…
Position of the palaeontological site Aven I des Abîmes de La Fage, at Noailles (Corrèze, France), in the European Pleistocene chronology
2003
Mourer-Chauvire, C., Philippe, M., Quinif, Y., Chaline, J., Debard, E., Guerin, C. & Hugueney, M. 2003 (September): Position of the palaeontological site Aven I des Abimes de La Fage, at Noailles (Correze, France), in the European Pleistocene chronology. Boreas, Vol. 32, pp. 521–531. Oslo. ISSN 0300–9483. The palaeontological locality of Aven I des Abimes de La Fage, at Noailles, Correze, France, is a limestone swallow hole filling which includes a rich fauna of micro- and macromammals, and one of the most complete Pleistocene avifaunas in the Palearctic. According to the mammal fauna and to the sedimentological study, the filling was previously assigned to the penultimate, Saalian, glaciat…
Palaeoenvironments and Quaternary foraminifera in the Elx coastal lagoon (Alicante, Spain)
2010
Abstract During the Quaternary, different palaeoenvironments characterised the Elx coastal lagoon (‘Albufera d'Elx’) located in the easternmost sector of the Betic Ranges (SE Spain). Micropalaeontological and sedimentological analysis of three drilled cores allowed characterization of different sedimentary environments, including alluvial, restricted lagoon, lagoon with marine connection, shoreface, foreshore, backshore, swamp, washover fan, and back-barrier flat. A model of the evolution of this region during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 7 is proposed, based on chronostratigraphic correlation between the cores. Up to six transgressive episodes can be recognised, mostly represented by calcare…
Cueva Antón: A multi-proxy MIS 3 to MIS 5a paleoenvironmental record for SE Iberia
2016
Overlying a palustrine deposit of unknown age (complex FP), and protected from weathering and erosion inside a large cave/rock-shelter cavity, the sedimentary fill of Cueva Antón, a Middle Paleolithic site in SE Spain, corresponds in most part (sub-complexes AS2-to-AS5) to a ca.3 m-thick Upper Pleistocene terrace of the River Mula. Coupled with the constraints derived from the deposit’s paleoclimatic proxies, OSL dating places the accumulation of this terrace in MIS 5a, and radiocarbon dates from the overlying breccia cum alluvium (sub-complex AS1) fall in the middle part of MIS 3; the intervening hiatus relates to valley incision and attendant erosion. The two intervals represented remain …
Preservation of modern and mis 5.5 erosional landforms and biological structures as sea level markers: A matter of luck?
2021
The Mediterranean Basin is characterized by a significant variability in tectonic behaviour, ranging from subsidence to uplifting. However, those coastal areas considered to be tectonically stable show coastal landforms at elevations consistent with eustatic and isostatic sea level change models. In particular, geomorphological indicators—such as tidal notches or shore platforms—are often used to define the tectonic stability of the Mediterranean coasts. We present the results of swim surveys in nine rocky coastal sectors in the central Mediterranean Sea using the Geoswim approach. The entire route was covered in 22 days for a total distance of 158.5 km. All surveyed sites are considered to…