Re‐analysis of late Quaternary dust mass accumulation rates in Serbia using new luminescence chronology for loess–palaeosol sequence at Surduk

Abstract

Despite numerous palaeoenvironmental investigations of loess–palaeosol sequences across the Carpathian Basin, well‐dated high‐resolution records are scarce. This paper presents a new high‐resolution chronology for the loess‐palaeosol sequence at Surduk (Serbia), based on optically stimulated luminescence (quartz) and post‐infrared infrared stimulated luminescence (polymineral) dating. The presented record spans 53–19 ka, with primary loess deposition occurring after 52±2 ka, and differs from previously published chronologies that relied on less precise and now superseded dating protocols. Based on the new chronology, mass accumulation rates (MARs) for Surduk were constructed and compared with sites in the Carpathian Basin. The results demonstrate that accumulation periods across this area are not consistent in timing or rates. The high‐resolution dating strategy identifies a disturbance in sediment deposition that occurred after 45±2 ka and implies that site contains a hiatus. Finally, we show samples that failed routine dose recovery and preheat plateau tests, and had low fast ratios. Supported by bulk sample geochemical analysis it is proposed that a potential abrupt source shift, during the Last Glacial Maximum, may be the cause of the anomalous luminescence behaviour.

Chronological Assessment of the Balta Alba Kurgan Loess-Paleosol Section (Romania) – A Comparative Study on Different Dating Methods for a Robust and Precise Age Model

“…Age-depth modeling generally allows for reducing uncertainty of the age estimates when uncertainties of individual ages overlap. This approach has been previously employed to loess deposits in the Danube catchment (e.g., Fenn et al, 2020a;Fenn et al, 2020b;Sümegi et al, 2020). In this study, we select the most accurate ages obtained with each method for age-depth modeling (for details see discussion of individual methods).…”

A tale of two signals: Global and local influences on the Late Pleistocene loess sequences in Bulgarian Lower Danube

“…Pedostratigraphic variability, alongside trends in magnetic susceptibility (Marković et al, 2012(Marković et al, , 2008 and grain size (Antoine et al, 2009a) have been widely used to provide chronological controls for LPS (Zeeden et al, 2018c). These approaches inevitably make assumptions regarding the continuity of deposition or that magnetic susceptibility shifts reflect geochronological synchroneity, both of which have been challenged since these approaches were employed (Fenn et al, 2020b;Stevens et al, 2018Stevens et al, , 2008. To address questions of global versus regional controls on LPS variation, and the idea of synchronous depositional and pedogenic response of LPS across the Middle and Lower Danube, a robust and absolute chronology is critical.…”

“…Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating has become the approach of choice within loess research as the method estimates the time of deposition of sediment and can provide chronologies for the whole glacial-interglacial cycle. OSL has been widely applied to Danubian loess sequences including Bulgaria (Balescu et al, 2020;Lomax et al, 2018), Croatia (Fenn et al, 2020a;Wacha and Frechen, 2011), Hungary (Novothny et al, 2011(Novothny et al, , 2002Újvári et al, 2014a), Serbia (Avram et al, 2020;Fenn et al, 2020b;Murray et al, 2014;Perić et al, 2019Perić et al, , 2020Stevens et al, 2011), and Romania (Constantin et al, 2014;Fitzsimmons and Hambach, 2014;Vasiliniuc et al, 2011). However, not all studies use highresolution absolute dating approaches or combine multiple chronological approaches (see Scheidt et al, 2021), limiting their effectiveness for comparing records between loess profiles and with other archives.…”

“…This peak is part of a temporary enhanced phase of sediment accumulation associated with the loess punctuated by the palaeosol-like bands (Unit VII) that occurred between 33.08±1.84 ka and 30.04±1.70 ka. (Zeeden et al, 2018c), Surduk 2 (Fenn et al, 2020b), Titel (Perić et al, 2019), Urluia (Obreht et al, 2016). Panels B) and C) show the same data as A) but focus on sites with MARs above 600 g m -2 a -1 and below 600 g m -2 a -1 respectively.…”

Sedimentology of a Late Quaternary lacustrine record from the south‐eastern Carpathian Basin

“…In the southern Carpathian Basin, the last glacial cycle experienced high sedimentation rates of aeolian dust of c. 5-15 cm/ka in most places (see, e.g. Buggle et al, 2009;Fitzsimmons et al, 2012;Marković et al, 2014;Fenn et al, 2020), which decreases with increasing distance from the large river systems. The depressions near Vršac show a west-south-west/east-north-east orientation, and are therefore unlikely to be related to aeolian processes, since southeasterly winds were probably persistent at least from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM; Gavrilov et al, 2018).…”