Abrupt end of the last interglacial s.s. in north-east France

• Main Author: Woillard, G.
• Other Authors: UCL
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 1979
• Subjects: taiga
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2078.1/66547

Close study of past interglacials might indicate how and when the present interglacial will end and whether the limit is heading towards a warming or a cooling. No certain prediction has been possible because of man's interference with the environment. But it is reported that when exploring the records of past temperate intervals frequent signs of abrupt changes of local environment were observed. In particular, abrupt shifts in forest composition end each Pleistocene interglacial whose record was studied in detail. In Grand Pile (north-east France), the Eemian (s.s.) (oxygen isotope substage 5e) temperate forest was replaced by a pine-spruce-birch taiga within ~150+/-75 yr. These results are based on rich pollen content of continuously deposited laminated gyttja and on the assumption of a constant sedimentation rate during the last 11000-yr long interglacial. Anglais