Environmental variability between the penultimate deglaciation and the mid Eemian: Insights from Tana che Urla (central Italy) speleothem trace element record

• Main Authors: Regattieri, Eleonora, Zanchetta, Giovanni, Drysdale, Russell, Isola, Ilaria, Woodhead, Jon, Hellstrom, John, Giaccio, Biagio, Greig, Alan, Baneschi, Ilaria, Dotsika, Elissavet
• Other Authors: Dipartimiento di Scinze della Terra, University of Pisa - Università di Pisa, Dipartimiento di Scienze della Terra, University of Melbourne, Environnements, Dynamiques et Territoires de Montagne (EDYTEM), Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB Université de Savoie Université de Chambéry )-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione di Palermo, School of Earth Sciences Melbourne, Faculty of Science Melbourne, University of Melbourne-University of Melbourne, CNR Istituto di Geoscienze e Georisorse Pisa (IGG-CNR), National Research Council of Italy, National Center for Scientific Research "Demokritos" (NCSR)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2016
• Subjects: Speleothem; Trace elements; Penultimate deglaciation; Last Interglacial; Central Italy; [SDE.MCG]Environmental Sciences/Global Changes; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; [SDE.IE]Environmental Sciences/Environmental Engineering; [SDE.ES]Environmental Sciences/Environment and Society; [SHS.GEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Geography; North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-02009232

International audience A trace element record (Mg, Sr, Ba, Al, Si, P, Y, Zn) covering the ca. 133 ka to ca. 124 ka time interval was acquired from a flowstone core from Tana che Urla Cave (central Italy). It was compared with stable isotope data to investigate the environmental evolution in response to regional and extra-regional climate changes in the period corresponding to the latter part of the Penultimate Deglaciation and the first part of the Last Interglacial (Eemian). Trace element geochemical changes on centennial and millennial time scales responded to changes in hydrological input, variations in the supply and transport of catchment erosion products to the cave, including those linked to intense rainfall events, and to the state of the overlying soil and vegetation. Abrupt increases in precipitation and the progressive development of soil and vegetation occurred at ca. 132 ka, in response to the development of the global deglacial phase. The major changes in trace element composition are coherent with the previous (hydrological interpretation of speleothem oxygen stable isotope composition (delta O-18) as predominantly a rainfall-amount proxy. However, reduced growth rate persisted until ca. 130 ka, suggesting still depressed temperatures. An abrupt event of climatic deterioration, with marked decrease in precipitation and soil degradation, is apparent between ca. 131 and 130 ka. Cool-wet conditions between ca. 132 and 131 ka and the subsequent dry period may represent the local hydrological response to an interval of North Atlantic cooling and ice-rafted-debris (IRD) deposition known as Heinrich event 11 (H11). After 129.6 ka there was a rapid recovery according to all of the studied speleothem properties, indicating the onset of full interglacial conditions. A minor amplitude event of reduced precipitation is recorded within the LIG at ca. 127 ka. The record highlights the growing regional evidence for a complex penultimate deglacial climate involving major reorganization of oceanic and ...