Showing papers in "Quaternary Research in 2009"

TL;DR: In this paper, a 4.30m-long sediment record collected from Koucha Lake in the Bayan Har Mountains, northeastern Tibetan Plateau was used to trace vegetation change by biomisation, ordination of pollen data, and calculation of pollen ratios.

TL;DR: In this article, the carbon-reservoir problem with bulk-sediment radiocarbon dates from lakes has long been recognized, and many synoptic studies continue to use chronologies derived from such dates.

TL;DR: In this article, an analysis of oxygen isotope ratios (δ18O) by ion microprobe resolves a sub-annual climate record for the Eastern Mediterranean from a Soreq Cave stalagmite that grew between 2.2 and 0.9

TL;DR: Although this study provides supporting evidence for the application of Sporormiella as a proxy for herbivore presence and abundance, independent proxies should be applied in conjunction with Spor Cormiella to control for changes in lake size.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a high-resolution pollen profile from the swamp site Nyabessan in the southern Cameroonian rainforest, covering the period 3100-2300 cal yr BP.

TL;DR: In this article, it was shown that dust outbreaks in Asia are predominantly springtime phenomena, and that frequent cyclogenesis in the lee of the Mongolian Altai and the passage of strong cold fronts produce the intense windstorms that loft and entrain dust into the air.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a model suggesting that during the Late Pleistocene wind power determined the mobility and stability of the dunes, and that dunes accumulated during periods of high wind power (as it is today) and stabilized when wind power was low.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed that the archaeological silence was caused by the regional impact of the global abrupt 8.2 ka cold event, which interrupted the humid Early Holocene.

TL;DR: The Iberian-Early Roman Humid Period (IRHP, 2600-1600 cal yr BP) is the most humid phase of the last 4000 yr in southern Spain as recorded in the sedimentary sequence of Zonar Lake (37°29′00″N, 4°41′22″ W, 300 m a.s.l.). A varve chronology supported by several AMS 14C dates allows study of the lake evolution at annual scale in response to human impact and climate changes as discussed by the authors.

TL;DR: Palaeoclimate and palaeoenvironment proxies (pollen, geochemical, sedimentological) from sediment cores collected in Lake Peten Itza, northern Guatemala, were used to conclude that vegetation changes in Peten during the period from ∼ 4500 to ∼ 3000 cal yr BP were largely a consequence of dry climate conditions as discussed by the authors.

TL;DR: In this article, carbon isotope and pollen records were used to assess the impact of the glaciation on the native vegetation of the Serra do Mar rainforest in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

TL;DR: In this paper, two different glacier mass-balance models are used to reconcile this Holocene glacier history with climate by quantifying the change in equilibrium-line altitudes (ELA) for simulated changes in Holocene climate.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors assessed seasonality of precipitation and summer surface wetness using compound specific hydrogen and carbon isotope ratios of vascular plant leaf waxes and Sphagnum biomarkers extracted from the sediments of an ombrotrophic peatland, Bostad Bog, Nordland, Norway.

TL;DR: A review of the published radiocarbon ages, new ages in this study, and consideration in a Bayesian framework suggest that the widespread G and B beds are several hundred years older than widely assumed as discussed by the authors.

TL;DR: The authors applied quartz OSL dating to aeolian samples from the Lhasa area with OSL ages ranging from 2.9 ± 0.2 to at least 118 −± 11 −k.

TL;DR: In this paper, a new paleolimnological dataset from Lake Pacucha (13°S, 3095m elevation) in the Peruvian Andes provides evidence of changes in lake level over the past 24,700 years.

TL;DR: In this paper, Holocene variations in annual precipitation (P ann ) were reconstructed from pollen data from southern Argentinian Patagonia using a transfer function developed based on a weighted-averaging partial least squares (WA-PLS) regression.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare tropical Pacific sedimentary records of paleoprecipitation to decipher which climate mechanism was responsible for the past rainfall changes, and find that latitudinal movements of the ITCZ are consistent with the observed rainfall patterns, challenging the ENSO hypothesis for explaining the rapid rainfall changes at low latitudes.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a record of relative changes in precipitation for NW Anatolia based on variations in the terrigenous supply expressed as detrital carbonate concentration.

TL;DR: In this paper, the late Quaternary vegetation history and environmental changes in a biodiverse tropical ecosystem are inferred from pollen, charcoal and carbon isotope evidence derived from a ∼ 48,000-yr sedimentary record from the Uluguru Mountains, a component of the Eastern Arc Mountains of Kenya and Tanzania.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the stratigraphy and sediments deposited in Lake Samra that occupied the Dead Sea basin between ∼ −135 and 75 Ã −ka, and combine this information with U/Th dating of primary aragonites in order to estimate a relative lake-level curve that serves as a regional paleohydrological monitor.

TL;DR: In this article, a continuous record of insect (Chironomidae) remains preserved in lake sediments is used to infer temperature changes at a small lake in Arctic Canada through the Holocene.

TL;DR: In this paper, a high-resolution pollen record with a well-controlled age model from Crystal Lake in northeastern Illinois reveals vegetation and climate conditions during the late-glacial and early Holocene intervals.

TL;DR: Foraminifera and diatoms preserved in salt-marsh sediments have been used to produce high-resolution records of Holocene relative sea-level (RSL) change as mentioned in this paper.

TL;DR: A high-resolution multi-proxy study including the elemental and isotopic composition of bulk organic matter, land plant-derived biomarkers, and alkenone-based sea-surface temperature (SST) from a marine sedimentary record obtained from the Jacaf Fjord in northern Chilean Patagonia (∼44°20′S) provided a detailed reconstruction of continental runoff, precipitation, and summer SST spanning the last 1750 years as discussed by the authors.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare fire-frequency reconstructions based on measurements of charcoal area and number, and estimates of charcoal volume from two lake sediment records from the eastern Canadian boreal forest.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used beaver-pond deposits and geomorphic characteristics of small streams to assess long-term effects of beavers and climate change on Holocene fluvial activity in northern Yellowstone National Park.

TL;DR: In this paper, a swath bathymetry from the western Amundsen Sea Embayment, West Antarctica, showing meltwater channels eroded into acoustic basement is presented, consistent with incision by subglacial meltwater.

TL;DR: The island fox (Urocyon littoralis) is one of the few endemic terrestrial mammals on California's Channel Islands as mentioned in this paper, and the earliest securely dated fox from the islands, these new data support the hypothesis that Native Americans introduced foxes to all the Channel Islands in the early to middle Holocene.

TL;DR: A sub-fossil Tamarix tree trunk, found in a remote section of Sedom Cave is radiocarbon dated to between ∼ 2265 and 1930 BCE as discussed by the authors.