9418657 Kelts The western Mediterranean paleoclimate during the last 40ka remains controversial in terms of comparing structure and timing of events with higher latitudes. This proposal targets the development of high resolution sediment and isotope stratigraphies from 3 sites of the eastern Iberian peninsula. Its objectives are to move toward a time-series approach to testing for the coherency of abrupt humid/arid transitions including potential moisture impacts from Heinrich events or Dansgaard-Oschger cycles over a region transitional between Europe and Africa. The project is a unique collaborative opportunity with Spanish colleagues from Barcelona who will provide supporting paleoecological analyses and the access to high-quality, long, continuous lacustrine cores. These cores have adequate dating to prove they contain records back >40ka BP. These 3 sites: La Paul de Bubal (central Pyrenees), Lake Banyoles (eastern Pyrenees) in the north and Lake Salines in southeast Spain, form a transect across moisture gradients. Each core contains abundant, good authigenic and biogenic carbonate phases which faithfully archive isotope signatures of the past aqueous dynamics. The results will be interpreted within the context of changing climatic patterns which determine effective moisture. The project will also test new strategies for the interpretation of carbon and oxygen isotopic ratios. Because of the inherent difficulties of interpreting stable isotopes from dynamic continental areas, this project depends on the careful integration of several proxies (sediment, Geochemical, magnetic, isotope and pollen) as well micro-scale facies analyses and sample characterization. Supplementary AMS radiocarbon and Th/U dating will be applied to increase precision across event transitions.
