Journal article
Millennial-scale climate variability during the Last Interglacial recorded in a speleothem from south-western France
I Couchoud, D Genty, D Hoffmann, R Drysdale, D Blamart
Quaternary Science Reviews | PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD | Published : 2009
Abstract
A stalagmite (BDinf) recovered from an archaeological cave (Bourgeois-Delaunay, La Chaise de Vouthon) in SW France provides a rare, high-resolution, precisely dated continental palaeoclimate record covering the warmest part of the Last Interglacial (128 ± 1-121 ± 1 ka). The growth interval spans the pluvial period recorded in Soreq and Peqiin Cave speleothems (during sapropel event S5), suggesting that the eastern Mediterranean and western Europe experienced relatively wet conditions simultaneously during this part of the Last Interglacial. Stable oxygen and carbon isotope ratios from BDinf show prominent millennial-scale variations, which are interpreted respectively in terms of changes in ..
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Awarded by UMR CNRS
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank A. Debenath for his permission and help in sampling speleothems from La Chaise caves and for the useful information he gave us. We also thank K. Charlier, B. Malaize, F. Manssouri and T. Smith for stable isotope analyses. We are also grateful to M.-F. Sanchez Goni for discussions on the MD95-2042 core record and to J.-P. Texier for his help in speleothem sampling and comments on earlier drafts. Analyses were funded by PACEA, UMR CNRS 5199, and by the CNRS programs ECLIPSE/PNEDC.