Climatic Signature and Chronology of Last Interglacial and Early Glacial Loess-Palaeosol Successions of Central and North-Western Europe: Proxy-Correlation with Marine and Greenland Data

Haesaerts, P.¹, Gerasimenko, N.², Pirson, S.¹

¹Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Vautierstraat 29, B-1000 Brussels, Belgium

¹Earth Sciences and Geomorphology Department, National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv, Ukraine

During the last decade relevant data on palaeoenvironment were gained for the Late Pleistocene loess-palaeosol successions of Central and North-Western Europe based on detailed pedostratigraphic and palynological records. Within this large geographic area, key-sections were selected, respectively in Central Ukraine, in the East Carpathian Area and in Middle Belgium, allowing the establishment of a well documented correlative scheme linking these three regions for the period of time from the last interglacial to the early pleniglacial. Each regional sequence records a complex succession of nine episodes of soil development including brown forest soil with Bt horizon, grey forest soil with Bth horizon, chernozem, brown boreal soil and weak humiferous soil. Moreover, the palynological data gathered in Central Ukraine for this pedostratigraphic succession shows a consistent signature of the vegetation with regard to the soil development, ranging from broad-leaved forest to dry forest-steppe, It allows for the first time, to correlate vegetation development phases from the loess-palaeosol sequences with those of long lacustrine reference pollen sequences of Europe, as well as with the marine and Greenland records. This correlative scheme not only demonstrates the remarkable reproducibility of the high-resolution climatic signal over long distance from the centre of the Russian Plain to the Atlantic Front, but also leads to combine the pedostratigraphic records and palynological data within a single structure on a large geographic scale.

Corresponding author: Paul Haesaerts | FALI MAIL!!!