Climate dynamics during the penultimate glacial period recorded in a speleothem from Kanaan Cave, Lebanon (central Levant)

C Nehme; S Verheyden; SFM Breitenbach; DP Gillikin; A Verheyden; H Cheng; R Lawrence Edwards; J Hellstrom; SR Noble; AR Farrant; D Sahy; T Goovaerts; G Salem; P Claeys

Journal article

Climate dynamics during the penultimate glacial period recorded in a speleothem from Kanaan Cave, Lebanon (central Levant)

C Nehme, S Verheyden, SFM Breitenbach, DP Gillikin, A Verheyden, H Cheng, R Lawrence Edwards, J Hellstrom, SR Noble, AR Farrant, D Sahy, T Goovaerts, G Salem, P Claeys

Quaternary Research United States | CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS | Published : 2018

DOI: 10.1017/qua.2018.18

Abstract

Little is known about terrestrial climate dynamics in the Levant during the penultimate interglacial-glacial period. To decipher the palaeoclimatic history of the Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 glacial period, a well-dated stalagmite (∼194 to ∼154 ka) from Kanaan Cave on the Mediterranean coast in Lebanon was analyzed for its petrography, growth history, and stable isotope geochemistry. A resolved climate record has been recovered from this precisely U-Th dated speleothem, spanning the late MIS 7 and early MIS 6 at low resolution and the mid-MIS 6 at higher resolution. The stalagmite grew discontinuously from ∼194 to ∼163 ka. More consistent growth and higher growth rates between ∼163 a..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

John Hellstrom Author

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Grants

Awarded by Natural Environment Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the mobility fellowship program of the Belgian Federal Scientific Policy (BELSPO). The U.S. National Science Foundation funded Union College's isotope ratio mass spectrometer and peripherals (NSF-MRI #1229258). We acknowledge the assistance of the EDYTEM Laboratory (UMR-5204 CNRS) and Saint-Joseph University for making stalagmites from 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, as well as Kevin de Bondt and David Verstraten for laboratory analyses. S.R. Noble, A.R. Farrant, and D. Sahy publish with the approval of the executive director, British Geological Survey. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and reviews.