Paleoclimatic reconstruction using Mutual Climatic Range on terrestrial mollusks.

• Published in: Quaternary Research
• Main Authors: Moine, Olivier, Rousseau, Denis-Didier, Jolly, Dominique, Vianey-Liaud, Marc
• Other Authors: Laboratoire de géographie physique : Environnements Quaternaires et Actuels (LGP), Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (UP1)-Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12 (UPEC UP12)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2002
• Subjects: terrestrial mollusks; Mutual Climatic Range; Europe; Quaternary; continental paleoclimatology; quantitative temperature estimates; geo; envir; Norway; Northern Norway
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1006/qres.2001.2286; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01208190/file/Moine_et_al_QR2002.pdf; https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01208190

International audience Terrestrial mollusks, easily identified in Quaternary sediments, represent a reliable tool for quantitative estimates of environmental parameters. Our study, comparing the species distribution with meteorological parameters in Europe, shows that mean temperature of the coldest month and annual thermal magnitude are the most important forcing parameters. This survey allows us to adapt the Mutual Climatic Range (MCR) method to terrestrial mollusk assemblages following two main steps. A set of assemblages from different European regions (northern Norway to southern France) is used to apply the method on present day mollusks. The reconstructed values describe the latitudinal temperature gradient prevailing over Europe. However, the comparison between the reconstructed and the measured values indicates a shift, similar to that observed, with the same method applied on beetle assemblages. Thus, estimates must be calculated after tuning the reconstruction with the observations. The results from the modern mollusk assemblages indicate that the MCR method can be safely applied to reconstruct temperatures from terrestrial mollusk assemblages in any worldwide Quaternary sequence. A trial application is made on Late Pleistocene assemblages from Achenheim (Alsace, France).