Evidence for millennial-scale climatic events in the sedimentary infilling of a macrotidal estuarine system, the Seine estuary (NW France)

Colmatage sédimentaire des marais maritimes et variations relatives du niveau marin au cours des 6 000 dernières années en rade de Brest (Finistère)

“…Cette influence marine n'est pas associée à une pulsation transgressive du niveau marin relatif, mais ferait suite à l'ouverture épisodique de brèches au sein du cordon littoral protégeant ces marais, voire à sa destruction pure et simple à la suite d'épisodes météo-marins paroxysmaux. Un renforcement des forçages hydrodynamiques à l'Âge du Fer sur le littoral de la Manche est, en effet, avéré puisque des indices de tempêtes extrêmement violentes ont été reconnus en Baie de Seine vers 2 700 cal.BP (Sorrel et al, 2009) …”

Climate control on late Holocene high-energy sedimentation along coasts of the northeastern Atlantic Ocean

“…A dominant feature is the presence of discrete, millimetre to centimetre thick shelly sand to gravel layers embedded in back-barrier lagoonal successions (Degeai et al, 2015;Dezileau et al, 2011;Sabatier et al, 2008) or in marsh fine-grained sediments (Billeaud et al, 2009), interpreted as the imprint of barrier destruction and sand over wash . These discrete coarse layers are also recognised offshore, in the wave-influenced outer section of estuaries (Baltzer et al, 2014;Sorrel et al, 2009). Another dominant feature is the detection of discrete erosional discontinuities in estuaries (Billeaud et al, 2009;Tessier et al, 2010) and lagoons (Ferrer et al, 2010), indicative of prolonged phases of sediment remobilisation and/or erosion.…”

Late Holocene vegetation changes in relation with climate fluctuations and human activity in Languedoc (southern France)

“…Various Holocene climate archives are available from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, such as marine ice-rafted debris in the North Atlantic (Bond et al, 2001), lake-level fluctuations in the Alps and the Mediterranean (Magny et al, 2002Magny, 2004Magny, , 2013, glacier oscillations in the Apennines (Giraudi, 2004(Giraudi, , 2005Giraudi et al, 2011), lake isotope records from the whole Mediterranean basin (Roberts et al, 2008) and changes in storminess (Sorrel et al, 2009;Sabatier et al, 2012). They highlight important climatic variations during the latter half of the Holocene which are correlated with vegetation changes.…”