Effective precipitation in southern Spain (∼ 266 To 46 Ka) based on a speleothem stable carbon isotope record

Abstract

We present the longest-duration directly dated terrestrial palaeoclimate record from the western Mediterranean region: a flowstone speleothem from Gitana Cave, southeast Spain. The main phase of growth was 274 to 58 ka, dated by multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICPMS) U-series methods. Effective precipitation, which we consider primarily responsible for flowstone calcite δ13C variations, measured at 300 μm resolution, was higher during interglacials associated with marine oxygen isotope stages (MIS) 7 and 5, and lower during glacial MIS 6. There is a close correspondence between speleothem δ13C and sea surface temperature (SST) estimates from adjacent Atlantic Ocean cores during MIS 6, which implies that oceanic conditions are critical in controlling the western Mediterranean terrestrial moisture balance during glacial periods. Other features of our record, such as the sequence of termination II warming/moistening between approximately 133 and 127 ka, including a "pause" around 130–128 ka, and the lagged termination of MIS 5 warm intervals (5e, 5c and 5a) are similar to other terrestrial records within the Mediterranean basin, indicating climate synchroneity along the northern Mediterranean coast. The Gitana cave region also may have been a refugium for temperate species during short-lived cold/arid periods during MIS 5.

Evaporite karst in Italy: a review

“…Such brief bursts of growth are not a common feature in speleothems from limestone or dolostone caves in southern Europe. Long speleothem records (>10,000 years) of comparable warm-wet periods have been reported in nearby areas (Bard et al, 2002;Genty et al, 2003;Drysdale et al, 2005Drysdale et al, , 2007Regattieri et al, 2014;Moseley et al, 2015), but also for recent glacial stages (Hodge et al, 2008;Moreno et al, 2010;Wainer et al, 2011Wainer et al, , 2013. This suggests that the deterioration of the European climate does not always mark the interruption of carbonate formation in classical limestone karst.…”

Timing of massive ‘Fleuve Manche’ discharges over the last 350kyr: insights into the European ice-sheet oscillations and the European drainage network from MIS 10 to 2

“…Moreover, numerous studies show strong palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic changes at time of the increasing Northern Hemisphere insolation during the mid-MIS 6 (e.g. Petit et al, 1999;Ayalon et al, 2002;Kawamura et al, 2007;Hodge et al, 2008;Wang et al, 2008), corroborating the concept of a reorganisation of the southern margin of the European ice sheet and Alpine glaciers within the ca. 160-150 ka interval.…”

Sub‐millennial climate shifts in the western Mediterranean during the last glacial period recorded in a speleothem from Mallorca, Spain

“…2) to discount the possibility of non-equilibrium deposition (Hendy and Wilson, 1968). We consider the d 18 O response to prevailing climate too complex to interpret here (see also Genty et al, 2006;Hodge et al, 2008) and concentrate solely on the d 13 C signal along axis, which displays sub-millennial variation with a full range of 11% (Fig. 3).…”