Lake sediments are ideal archives to evaluate the interactions between climatically driven environmental responses and human activity on seasonal to multi-decadal timescales. This study focuses on the unique sediments of Diss Mere, the only lake in England providing an annually laminated (varved) record for most of the Holocene. We combine microfacies analysis with X-ray core scanning data to explore the influence of natural and human-led changes on sediment deposition over the past 10 200 years and evaluate the sensitivity of the lake sediments to climate variability through time. Variability of titanium (Ti), calcium (Ca) and silica (Si) explain most of the lithological changes observed in the sediment and we identify three stages with low (10 290–2070 cal a bp), intermediate (2070–1040 cal a bp) and intensified (1040 cal a bp – present) human influence. During the first stage, where varved sediments are preserved, Ti is low due to the minimal detrital input into the lake. Ca and Si during this stage reveal high-amplitude variability responding to seasonal changes in sediment deposition. The termination of varved sediment preservation and increases in sedimentation rates coincide with a major rise in Ti after this first stage, marking the intensification of human activity around the lake. Ca is used here as an indicator of temperature-included calcite precipitation, and the long-term variability of the Ca profile resembles Holocene temperature evolution. This continues during periods of intensified human activity, suggesting that the Diss Mere sediments remain sensitive to climate through time.
The highest cycle of post-Lake Bonneville Great Salt Lake in the Bonneville basin, Utah, USA, was thought for many years to have formed the ‘Gilbert shoreline’ (quotation marks indicate lack of scientific support). Mapping of the ‘shoreline’ is not reproducible and the concept has multiple problems, including that the ‘shoreline’ cannot be correlated with the well-documented major rise of Great Salt Lake during the terminal Pleistocene. To avoid confusion, we propose abandoning the name Gilbert, which previously had been applied informally to both the hypothetical shoreline and lake cycle, and instead we use the name Currey cycle for the lake rise. During the Younger Dryas Currey cycle, Great Salt Lake became fresh to brackish about 12 700 cal a bp, and rose roughly 15 m higher than the modern lake. The end of the Currey cycle marked the beginning of extensive human occupation of the Old River Bed inland delta.
Southeastern Patagonia's (49° S) post-glacial history inferred from high Andean lake sediments provides new insights regarding Late Pleistocene and Holocene vegetation dynamics at the eastern margin of the Southern Patagonian Icefield. The fossil records of pollen, charcoal and geochemical data from tephra layers from Laguna Chiquita and Laguna Gemelas Este were analysed to reveal past landscape dynamics related to vegetation changes, fire and volcanic events from ca. 15 200 cal a bp to the present. Nothofagus forest expanded over shrubland communities sometime between 15 200 and 4600 cal a bp, along with at least three disturbance sources related to the volcanic eruptions of Lautaro, Aguilera and Hudson, important local fire episodes, and neoglacial advances. Major charcoal deposition reveals moderate fire activity during the Late Pleistocene related to an open landscape characterised by a grass/shrub steppe. Local glacier advances may have affected the Laguna Gemelas Este sedimentation. Tephra deposition events do not correlate to vegetation changes inferred from the Laguna Gemelas Este and Laguna Chiquita pollen records. Late Holocene eastern Andean forest changes and fire activity at 49° S match other southern palaeoenvironmental records (50–52° S) suggesting that changes in the Southern Westerly Wind latitudinal position and intensity drove major palaeovegetation and fire dynamics before the European settlement. In the last centuries, fire and vegetation changes have been closely related to an increase in local ignition sources and the introduction of alien species.
The long sedimentary sequence of Notarchirico has yielded evidence of one of the earliest Acheulean manifestations in Europe and of recurrent hominin occupation, spanning from the end of the interglacial MIS 17 to the glacial MIS 16 (~695–610 ka). Here, we report the new discovery of a lion, Panthera spelaea, from the site, based on a metatarsal from layer A. This part of the sequence dates to ~660–612 ka (MIS 16, 40Ar/39Ar age). Therefore, Notarchirico's lion represents the earliest confirmed occurrence of the species in southwestern Europe, although older findings are known from adjacent areas. Lions and several other large mammal species dispersed into Europe during the Early–Middle Pleistocene Transition, which also witnessed the spread of the Acheulean. Ecological and behavioural adaptability was probably key, for hominins and other species, to cope with the intense and recurrent environmental fluctuations that occurred during this period.
The study of alluvial terraces helps in reconstructing the past geometries of rivers and makes it possible to assess the rate and pattern of fluvial incision and bedrock uplift. The fluctuations of river base levels are particularly variable and complex during the Late Quaternary in the lower course of rivers due to the interplay of responses to sea-level fluctuations, tectonics and glacio-isostasy. In this paper, the geometry and chronology of Manoir Brésil, an outcrop of alluvial terraces of the Lower Seine River, northern France, are investigated through a multidisciplinary study. Fluvial incision during MIS 8 in the Lower Seine in relation to sea-level drop is recorded by an erosional surface cut into the chalk bedrock. This surface is covered by MIS 7 tidal deposits and then by younger, mostly periglacial colluvium (head). Manoir Brésil is therefore considered to be a chronological equivalent of the nearby, well-studied Tourville-la-Rivière outcrop. The deposits are affected by post-MIS 7 cryoturbation processes. Based on the local elevation of MIS 7 tidal deposits and erosional surfaces at Manoir Brésil, a minimum bedrock uplift rate of 25–40 m/Ma and an erosion rate of 125 m/Ma during glacial periods can be proposed. A regional correlation of the MIS 8 erosional surface is increasingly deformed by uplift towards the North, making it difficult to correlate the fluvial deposits along the Seine without precise chronological control. We interpret this regional tilt as the result of isostasy rebound after glaciations, consistent with the distribution of the elevations of MIS 5e and MIS 7 marine deposits along the English Channel.
An extended inventory of 82 well-dated European calcareous tufas is used to discuss the timing and amplitude of their onset, maximum and decline; in particular differences from east to west and between the Mediterranean area and the rest of Europe. Eastern deposits start to develop and reach their maximum slightly earlier than western tufas. Strong east–west differences in the timing and intensity of the climatic improvement during the first half of the Holocene explain the earlier development of eastern tufas compared with the west. The strongest differences are observed between Mediterranean deposits and other European tufas both in their development and decline, whether all or only fluvial deposits are considered, reflecting the important decoupling between Mediterranean and mid-latitude climate records. During the Late Holocene, the earlier and more pronounced tufa decline observed in European mid-latitudes is likely to result from more intense and rapid deforestation compared with the Mediterranean region.
Closed basins within the Great Basin of the western United States were home to numerous lakes during the Pleistocene. One of these paleolakes along the western edge of the Great Basin, Lake Wellington, once filled a 10 × 25-km expanse of Smith Valley to depths approaching 90 m. This and other lakes that existed during the Pleistocene are generally considered to be pluvial, indicating contemporaneity with either or all a period of cooler climate, increased rainfall and snowmelt, and relatively reduced rates of evaporation as compared to today. Here we combine the results of 36Cl terrestrial cosmogenic nuclide surface exposure dating with soils and geomorphic observations to suggest Lake Wellington was not a pluvial lake but instead the result of a large landslide prior to ~43 ± 15 ka along the West Walker River where it exited Smith Valley. The observations collected also reveal an ancestral course of the West Walker River ~85 m above the current river grade. Attributing the elevation difference to incision caused by active 0.05 ± 0.01 mm a−1 uplift of the underlying Singatse and assuming the ancestral course followed the same path as today places the age of the paleoriver course at ~1.7 Ma.
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