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During the last 10 years or so, magnetic susceptibility (MS) measurements of cave sediments from archaeological sites have been used for intrasite correlation and paleoclimate estimation. This is possible, if the context is appropriate, because the MS of these sediments result from climate processes active outside caves causing variations in magnetic properties of the sediments ultimately accumulating inside of caves. Once deposited, these materials are preserved, and their stratigraphy provides a climate proxy that can be extracted. Here, using the magnetosusceptibility event and cyclostratigraphy (MSEC) method and graphic correlation, we present a paleoclimatic framework for the last 40,000 years for southern Europe and demonstrate the intersite correlation power of the method. Our preliminary result for southern Europe represents climate fluctuations from ϳ43,000 to ϳ3,000 yr B.P. (we use here uncalibrated ages). The results correlate well with independent climate indicators, and because these data are robust, they can be used in relative dating. ᭧

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We have found evidence for a bolide impacting Earth in the mid-Devonian ( approximately 380 million years ago), including high concentrations of shocked quartz, Ni, Cr, As, V, and Co anomalies; a large negative carbon isotope shift (-9 per mil); and microspherules and microcrysts at Jebel Mech Irdane in the Anti Atlas desert near Rissani, Morocco. This impact is important because it is coincident with a major global extinction event (Kacák/otomari event), suggesting a possible cause-and-effect relation between the impact and the extinction. The result may represent the extinction of as many as 40% of all living marine animal genera.