Drought in the northern Bahamas from 3300 to 2500 years ago

Rapid inundation of southern Florida coastline despite low relative sea-level rise rates during the late-Holocene

“…This isotopic shift is marked by the blue bar. c Greater Caribbean sites indicating drought: Abaco island aridity 46 , No Man’s Land, Abaco Island sink hole marine sapropel 45 , Dos Anas Cave δ 18 O speleothem record hiatus 47 , Northeast Shark River Slough gypsum occurrence 36 . d Titanium recorded in Cariaco Basin, Venezuela sediments, as a proxy for terrestrial runoff 41 , interpreted as a record of ITCZ position.…”

“…Additional evidence of drier conditions during the MET (3.5–2.8 ka), include a shift to moderate to short hydroperiods in central Florida 44 , plant assemblages associated with drier environments from a ridge core in the Everglades ridge and slough landscape 45 , and a period of tree island initiation and expansion that has been linked to periods of aridity 43 . More broadly, aridity across the Caribbean is documented ~3.3–2.5 ka, including in the Bahamas 46 , Cuba 47 , Andros Island 48 , Saint Martin 49 , and the Dominican Republic 50 , while in Belize a period of drought from ~4.2–3.5 ka is followed by shift toward higher precipitation 3.3–2 ka 51 (Fig. 6).…”

“…6). This aridity has been attributed to a westward or southward expansion of the North Atlantic Subtropical High, in conjunction with the southward movement of the ITCZ 46 , a pattern that increases the likelihood of extreme rainfall events and droughts over the southeastern North America 52 . Coupled ENSO and ITCZ intensity and position would have produced anomalously wet (dry) conditions and winter cyclones (tropical storms) in south Florida during El Niño (La Niña) phases 53 and a northward (southward) ITCZ, respectively, conditions that would have amplified the wet-dry effects of each component by itself.…”

“…1Study area map. a Regional map showing the study location (red square) and other sites discussed: (1) Faxahatchee Strand 37 , (2) Northeast Shark River Slough 38 , (3) Cariaco Basin 42 , (4) No Man’s Land, Bahamas 46 , (5) Dos Anas Cave, Cuba 47 , (6) Church’s Bluehole, Andros 48 , (7) Lake Miragoane, Haiti 40 , (8) Valle de Bao, Dominican Republic 50 , (9) Turneffe Atoll, Belize 51 . b Aerial photographs show core locations on each island; use of a Russian peat corer eliminated sediment compaction and allowed determination of accurate paleo-elevations of peat deposits.…”

Let research on subterranean habitats resonate!

“…Interestingly, some of these properties make caves useful in a broad range of scientific areas. The stable microclimatic conditions, for example, favour the preservation of fossils (Berger et al 2015;Harvati et al 2019) and makes caves natural laboratories for paleoclimatic reconstructions and global change biology studies (Yuan et al 2004;van Hengstum et al 2018;Mammola et al 2019; 5 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 (Martínez and Mammola 2020). The yearly Impact factor of journals is based on the periodical reports by the Journal Citation Reports of Clarivate.…”