A 35ka pollen and isotope record of environmental change along the southern margin of the Kalahari from a stalagmite and animal dung deposits in Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa

Brook, George A.; Scott, Louis; Railsback, L. Bruce; Goddard, Ethan A.

doi:10.1016/j.jaridenv.2009.11.006

Cited by 83 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…18 000 cal yr BP or 7700 cal yr BP (see below) (Kristen et al, 2010;Metwally et al, 2014;Partridge et al, 1997;Scott, 1999a, b). Poor pollen availability during this phase also occurs at other sites such as Tate Vondo (Baboolal, 2014;Scott, 1987) and Gorongosa in Mozambique (McWethy et al, 2016) while speleothems indicate unstable conditions at the Pleistocene/Holocene transition (Brook et al, 2010;Holmgren et al, 2003). At Tswaing, poor diatom valve preservation has also been recorded at this time with indications of saline conditions.…”

Section: Regional Synthesismentioning

confidence: 68%

Fluctuations of vegetation and climate over the last 75 000 years in the Savanna Biome, South Africa: Tswaing Crater and Wonderkrater pollen sequences reviewed

Scott

2016

Quaternary Science Reviews

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Section: Regional Synthesismentioning

confidence: 68%

Fluctuations of vegetation and climate over the last 75 000 years in the Savanna Biome, South Africa: Tswaing Crater and Wonderkrater pollen sequences reviewed

Scott

2016

Quaternary Science Reviews

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“…Present in both MB3 and MB5 stalagmites, BMC-samples host high palynomorph concentrations, reaching a maximum of 564 pal/g in MB5. To our knowledge, this concentration is the highest yield ever reported from speleothems (McGarry and Caseldine, 2004;Meyer et al, 2009;Brook et al, 2010;Urban et al, 2015). We suggest that the originally instable carbonate associated with biofilms, may have represented a favorable environment for trapping aerosols in ventilated cave passages.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 67%

Pollen from accurately dated speleothems supports alpine glacier low-stands during the early Holocene

2016

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a b s t r a c tDeciphering pollen assemblages from alpine speleothems holds potential to provide unique information about past vegetation in rapidly changing environments. Here, we reconstruct subsurface aerosol transport at Milchbach cave (Switzerland, 1840 m asl) based on the pollen content of two Holocene stalagmites. We demonstrate that pollen is chiefly associated with bacterially mediated calcite fabrics, typical of a well-ventilated cave system. In contrast, pollen is absent from columnar calcite fabrics confirming that hydrological transport is not a significant process for the incorporation of pollen into speleothems at Milchbach cave. Our results support significant changes in the subsurface ventilation regime, which can be associated with the waxing and waning of Upper Grindelwald glacier. Pollen assemblages obtained from six carbonate sub-samples attest the presence of a mixed deciduous forest in the Grindelwald valley during the early and middle Holocene, in agreement with coeval regional pollen records. This study demonstrates that even small amounts of calcite (0.3e2.8 cm 3 ) are capable of delivering pollen spectra representative of the original vegetation if sufficiently elevated deposition fluxes are provided.

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“…Speleothem deposition resumes at Lobatse Cave at 27 ka with generally cooler conditions than in its first phase of deposition (51-43 ka) and a higher abundance of C 4 grasses [28,52] or drier conditions if δ 13 C is interpreted in terms of PCP. Speleothem formation starts at Cold Air Cave and Wonderwerk Cave at~24 ka with stable isotopes from Wonderwerk indicative of warm and dry conditions [29,67]. Records from Orumana Cave in Namibia also suggest drier conditions there between 20 and 14.5 ka than between~47-39 ka [32].…”

Section: The Summer Rainfall Regionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Window into Africa’s Past Hydroclimates: The SISAL_v1 Database Contribution

et al. 2019

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Africa spans the hemispheres from temperate region to temperate region and has a long history of hominin evolution. Although the number of Quaternary palaeoclimatic records from the continent is increasing, much of the history of spatial and temporal climatic variability is still debated. Speleothems, as archives of terrestrial hydroclimate variability, can help reveal this history. Here we review the progress made to date, with a focus on the first version of the Speleothem Isotopes Synthesis and AnaLysis (SISAL) database. The geology of Africa has limited development of large karst regions to four areas: along the northern coast bordering the Mediterranean, eastern Africa and the Horn of Africa, southwestern Africa and southern Africa. Exploitation of the speleothem palaeoclimate archives in these regions is uneven, with long histories of research, e.g., in South Africa, but large areas with no investigations such as West Africa. Consequently, the evidence of past climate change reviewed here is irregularly sampled in both time and space. Nevertheless, we show evidence of migration of the monsoon belt, with enhanced rainfall during interglacials observed in northeast Africa, southern Arabia and the northern part of southern Africa. Evidence from eastern Africa indicates significant decadal and centennial scale rainfall variability. In northwestern and southern Africa, precession and eccentricity influence speleothem growth, largely through changing synoptic storm activity.

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A 35ka pollen and isotope record of environmental change along the southern margin of the Kalahari from a stalagmite and animal dung deposits in Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa

Cited by 83 publications

References 57 publications

Fluctuations of vegetation and climate over the last 75 000 years in the Savanna Biome, South Africa: Tswaing Crater and Wonderkrater pollen sequences reviewed

Fluctuations of vegetation and climate over the last 75 000 years in the Savanna Biome, South Africa: Tswaing Crater and Wonderkrater pollen sequences reviewed

Pollen from accurately dated speleothems supports alpine glacier low-stands during the early Holocene

A Window into Africa’s Past Hydroclimates: The SISAL_v1 Database Contribution

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