Late Pleistocene lacustrine sediments and their relation to red soils in the Northeastern margin of the Dinaric Karst

Abstract

Bosák: Late Pleistocene lacustrine sediments and their relation to red soils in the Northeastern margin of the Dinaric Karst A large karst doline at section Hrastje-Lešnica in the Dolenjska region (SE Slovenia) was uncovered during the construction of Slovene highway No. A2. Its fill consists of brownish-yellow clay to silt with plant remains and ferrugineous coatings after root casts and gastropods (paleosol horizon) in the bottom, and overlying thick lacustrine laminated grey clayey sediments which were partly rubified. Brownish-yellow clay to silt contains quartz, chlorite, muscovite and feldspars transported as external clastic material from evolved karst and non-carbonate landscapes from surroundings into the site. The material is well weathered only in the area of the paleosol horizon. The strongly impoverished malacocoenosis indicates any Quaternary warm phase characterized by light semi-open forest with patches of open ground habitats. Only the last paleomagnetic sample in the bottom of sediment sequence shows reverse polarity of magnetic field and represents the geomagnetic excursion, i.e., the Blake excursion at ca 120-112 ka (MIS 5e), rather than Brunhes/Matuyama boundary at 0.78 Ma (MIS 19). Thick lacustrine laminated grey clayey sediments above