Evidence for global teleconnections in a late Pleistocene speleothem record of water balance and vegetation change at Sudwala Cave, South Africa

H Green; R Pickering; R Drysdale; BC Johnson; J Hellstrom; M Wallace

Journal article

Evidence for global teleconnections in a late Pleistocene speleothem record of water balance and vegetation change at Sudwala Cave, South Africa

H Green, R Pickering, R Drysdale, BC Johnson, J Hellstrom, M Wallace

Quaternary Science Reviews | Published : 2015

DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2014.11.016

Abstract

Understanding the global response to millennial-scale climatic events is essential to our comprehension of climatic teleconnections and projection of future change, however the extent and nature of their expression in areas of the Southern Hemisphere is often viewed as equivocal. Here we report uranium-thorium dating of speleothem formations sampled at Sudwala Cave in the north-eastern Lowveld region of South Africa's summer rainfall zone (SRZ). The growth intervals of multiple formations, alongside a detailed chronology and multi-proxy analysis of two periods of growth, 40-35ka and 13.8-12.8ka, in a stalagmite (SC1), provide information regarding key fluctuations in the palaeoclimatic and p..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Helen Green Author

Russell Drysdale Author

John Hellstrom Author

Malcolm Wallace Author

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Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge Phillip Owen, Stefa and the staff at Sudwala Caves for their enthusiasm and for making our visits to the caves such a pleasure. Collection and excavation permits were granted by the South African Heritage Resource Agency. Funding received from the University of Melbourne (0023249 McKenzie Fellowship to RP) and the Australian Research Council (DE120102504 to RP). Thanks to Alan Greig for his patient assistance with the laser ablation, to Warrick Joe for stable isotope analyses.