Linking Danube River activity to Alpine Ice-Sheet fluctuations during the last glacial (ca. 33–17 ka BP): Insights into the continental signature of Heinrich Stadials

• Published in: Quaternary Science Reviews
• Main Authors: Martinez-Lamas, Ruth, TOUCANNE, Samuel, Debret, Maxime, Riboulot, Vincent, Deloffre, Julien, Boissier, Audrey, Chéron, Sandrine, Pitel, Mathilde, Bayon, Germain, Giosan, Liviu, Soulet, Guillaume
• Other Authors: Morphodynamique Continentale et Côtière (M2C), Université de Caen Normandie (UNICAEN), Normandie Université (NU)-Normandie Université (NU)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Université de Rouen Normandie (UNIROUEN), Normandie Université (NU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Laboratoire Environnements Sédimentaires - Géosciences Marines (GM/LES), Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (IFREMER), Unité de recherche Géosciences Marines (Ifremer) (GM), Department of Geology and Geophysics, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2020
• Subjects: Danube river; Floods; Hyperpycnites; Alpine ice sheet; Heinrich stadials; Seasonality; Black sea; [SDU.STU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences; [SDU.STU.CL]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Climatology; [SDU.STU.GL]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences/Glaciology; Greenland; Ice Sheet; North Atlantic; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://hal-normandie-univ.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02548932; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.106136

International audience Offshore archives retrieved from marine/lacustrine environments receiving sediment from large river systems are valuable Quaternary continental records. In the present study, we reconstruct the Danube River activity at the end of the last glacial period based on sedimentological, mineralogical and geochemical analyses performed on long-piston cores from the north-west Black Sea margin. Our data suggest that the Danube River produced hyperpycnal floods throughout the ca. 33–17 ka period. Four main periods of enhanced Danube flood frequency, each of 1.5–3 kyr duration, are recorded at ca. 32.5–30.5 ka (equivalent to the first part of Heinrich Stadial –HS– 3), at ca. 29–27.5 ka (equivalent to Greenland Stadial 4), at ca. 25.3–23.8 ka (equivalent to HS 2) and at ca. 22.3–19 ka. Based on mineralogical and geochemical data, we relate these events to enhanced surface melting of the Alpine Ice Sheet (AIS) that covered ∼50,000 km2 of the Danube watershed at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Our results suggest that (i) the AIS growth from the inner Alps to its LGM position in the northern Alpine foreland started from ca. 30.5 ka, ended no later than ca. 25.3 ka, and was interrupted by a melting episode ca. 29–27.5 ka; (ii) the AIS volume drastically decreased from ca. 22.3 to 19 ka, as soon as summer insolation energy at the AIS latitude increased; and (iii) HSs strongly impacted the AIS mass balance through enhanced summer surface melt. This, together with evidence of severely cool winters and the rapid expansion of sea ice in the North Atlantic, implies strong seasonality in continental Europe during stadials.