Timing and characteristics of Late Pleistocene and Holocene wetter periods in the Eastern Desert and Sinai of Egypt, based on 14C dating and stable isotope analysis of spring tufa deposits

Abstract

There is very little dated evidence on wet periods in the Eastern Desert and Sinai Peninsula of Egypt during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. To obtain such information, we have studied the petrography, isotope geochemistry and AMS radiocarbon ages of mostly relict tufas deposited by springs draining perched ground water bodies in metamorphic and volcanic rocks. The tufas unconformably overly Precambrian basic igneous rocks (basalt, diabase and gabbro). As the ages of tufa carbonate are frequently older than the true ages of the deposits because of the incorporation of old, ¹⁴C-dead carbon, we have dated both the carbonate matrix and insoluble organic material of the tufas. These ages show that the tufas were largely formed during two broad time periods, the most recent from 12,058 to 6678 cal yr BP (African Humid Period), and the other from ∼31,200–22,500 cal yr BP, with preferential growth during the coldest times of this period namely during Heinrich Events 2 and 3 (H2 and H3) and the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The time span between 19,000–9000 cal yr BP, including the YD and H1, appears to have been relatively more arid than the earlier LGM or H2 periods or the later Holocene. The Late Pleistocene tufas are depleted in ¹⁸O relative to the Holocene tufas and were deposited at a lower temperature (∼14.0°–20.8 °C vs. 18.4°–23.4 °C). We believe that the Holocene tufas in the Sinai were formed by rainfall from the Mediterranean and those in the southern part of the Eastern Desert by African monsoon rainfall derived from the Red Sea-Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean. In contrast, the moisture that fed the Late Pleistocene tufas, which are depleted in ¹⁸O relative to Holocene deposits, and progressively depleted from north to south, was probably brought by the Westerlies from the Atlantic-Mediterranean Sea when the Westerly circulation was pushed southwards during the coldest periods of the Late Pleistocene. Periods of tufa deposition correlate with major documented paleoclimatic events in North Africa during the late Pleistocene and Holocene; such as the Nile floods, high sea level and the formation of sapropels in the Mediterranean.