Lateglacial and early-Holocene palaeohydrological changes in the upper reaches of the Ūla River: An example from southeastern Lithuania

Abstract

A reconstructed pattern of Lateglacial and Holocene hydrological changes in the area of the former lakes Dūbas, Pelesa and Matara is presented. The investigated basin is situated in southeastern Lithuania, beyond the marginal ridge of the Weichselian Glaciation, on the margin of the sandy plain that is the watershed between the Ūla and Katra rivers. Pollen analysis, radiocarbon dating, loss-on-ignition measurements and GIS-based simulation of water level fluctuations have been applied in order to obtain new information on the development of the Ūla–Katra watershed area. The results of multiproxy investigations revealed the history of the development and extinction of Dūbas, Pelesa and Matara lakes. A single basin, covering a large part of the study area, had formed after the retreat of the continental ice sheet from southeastern Lithuania. This basin was divided into three separate lakes during the Allerød Interstadial as a result of a drop in water level. Blocking of the drainage by aeolian sediments around the early Boreal caused another rise in the water-table and the successive merging of the separate lakes. Probably as a result of river capture, the single lake was drained abruptly after c. 2000 years. Another river-capture event in the 19th century caused abrupt drainage of the study area, which led to the final extinction of the three lakes.

Age and sedimentary record of inland eolian sediments in Lithuania, NE European Sand Belt

“…In southern Lithuanian paleolake environments, the beginning of gyttja deposition with a high number of Slaginella selaginoides L. and Betula nana L. has been noted for the time period 14,950-13,750 cal yr BP (Stančikaitė et al, 2008) together with an increasing number of heliophytes and Armeria, particularly in northwestern Lithuania. For northeastern Lithuania the paleobotanical record suggests scarcity of vegetation cover and a low content of organic matter in the sediments between 13,580 to 13,240 cal yr BP (Balakauskas et al, 2012). These paleobotanical records may be interpreted as indicative of the short-term climatic deterioration and may explain the decreasing number of eolian-type grains in the sediments.…”

“…For northeastern Lithuania the paleobotanical record suggests scarcity of vegetation cover and a low content of organic matter in the sediments between 13,580 to 13,240 cal yr BP (Balakauskas et al, 2012). These paleobotanical records may be interpreted as indicative of the short-term climatic deterioration and may explain the decreasing number of eolian-type grains in the sediments.…”

Sediment record from the Kamyshovoe Lake: history of vegetation during late Pleistocene – early Holocene (Kaliningrad District, Russia)

“…Recent research of the palaeoenvironment of the Eastern Baltic region, in which the multi-proxy approach has increasingly been used, addresses questions about the ice-recession pattern (Bitinas 2011;Guobytė, Satkūnas 2011;Kalm et al 2011), vegetation history (Stančikaitė et al 2008(Stančikaitė et al , 2009(Stančikaitė et al , 2015Šeirienė et al 2006;Heikkila et al 2009;Saarse et al 2009;Amon, Saarse 2010;Gaidamavičius et al 2011;Veski et al 2012), the chronology of particular climatic and environmental events in the region (Rinterknecht et al 2006(Rinterknecht et al , 2008, and the postglacial history of numerous lakes (Šeirienė et al 2009;Gryguc et al 2013;Balakauskas et al 2013).…”

Lateglacial and Holocene environmental history in the area of Samogitian Upland (NW Lithuania)

“…Records from numerous paleobotanical, lithological and chronological investigations across Lithuania quite well unclose the vegetation cover and environmental variations during the last Lateglacial and Holocene (Kabailienė 1993(Kabailienė , 2006bBlažauskas et al 1998;Stančikaitė et al 2002Stančikaitė et al , 2003Stančikaitė et al , 2004Stančikaitė et al , 2006Stančikaitė et al , 2008Stančikaitė et al , 2009Stančikaitė et al , 2015Gaidamavičius et al 2011;Balakauskas et al 2012;Gryguc et al 2013). However, when dealing with marginal areas of the Late Weichselian Scandinavian ice sheet it faces many uncertainties related to the peculiarities of local environmental conditions and problems with stratigraphical subdivision of sediment layers (Satkūnas 2011;Šeirienė et al 2015).…”