Reconstructing paleoclimate in central Italy since Late Pleistocene: the Lake Trasimeno ostracod record

• Main Author: Marchegiano, Marta
• Other Authors: Ariztegui, Daniel
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Université de Genève 2017
• Subjects: info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/550; Paleoclimate; Paleoenvironment; Ostracods; Mediterranean area; Lake Trasimeno; Limnogeology; Micropaleontology; Greenland
• Online Access: https://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:105656; https://doi.org/10.13097/archive-ouverte/unige:105656

An 8.59 m long sedimentary core was retrieved from Lake Trasimeno (central Italy) in order to reconstruct the climate history of central Italy throughout the last ca. 47,000 cal yr BP using ostracod assemblages as the main proxy. Lake Trasimeno's ostracod fauna pointed out several lake level changes. A comparison with other proxies in the same core and the correlation with the oxygen isotope curve from Greenland allowed to interpret them as climatically driven changes (humid and arid periods). The analyses of Trasimeno core allowed us to improve the existing knowledge about the evolution of climatically-forced environmental conditions for the last 47,000 cal yr BP. The comparison with other climatic records indicates that the lake is sensitive to global climatic patterns. Furthermore, these results are challenging existing views about latitudinal moisture distribution in the Italian peninsula and, thus, contribute to constrain the outcome of climate models for the Mediterranean area.