Journal article
Reconstruction of MIS 5 climate in the central Levant using a stalagmite from Kanaan Cave, Lebanon
C Nehme, S Verheyden, SR Noble, AR Farrant, D Sahy, J Hellstrom, JJ Delannoy, P Claeys
Climate of the Past | Published : 2015
Abstract
Lying at the transition between the temperate Mediterranean domain and subtropical deserts, the Levant is a key area to study the palaeoclimatic response over glacial-interglacial cycles. This paper presents a precisely dated last interglacial (MIS 5) stalagmite (129-84 ka) from the Kanaan Cave, Lebanon. Variations in growth rate and isotopic records indicate a warm humid phase at the onset of the last interglacial at ∼ 129 ka that lasted until ∼ 125 ka. A gradual shift in speleothem isotopic composition (125-122 ka) is driven mainly by the δ18O source effect of the eastern Mediterranean surface waters during sapropel 5 (S5). The onset of glacial inception began after ∼ 122 ka, interrupted b..
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Grants
Awarded by Natural Environment Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
This study was funded by the mobility fellowship programme of the Belgian Federal Scientific Policy (BELSPO), co-funded by the Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission. We acknowledge EDYTEM Laboratory (UMR-5204 CNRS) and Saint-Joseph University for making stalagmites of Kanaan Cave available for analyses during this study. We would like to thank the support of ALES (Association Libanaise d'Etudes Speleologiques) members who accompanied us during field trips. Farrant and Noble publish with the approval of the Executive Director, British Geological Survey. We thank Thomas Goovaerts for sampling preparation, Daniel Condon for assisting with the uranium series analyses and Kevin De Bont for assisting in water analyses. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and reviews.