TY - JOUR
T1 - Last Glacial loess in Europe
T2 - Luminescence database and chronology of deposition
AU - Bosq, Mathieu
AU - Kreutzer, Sebastian
AU - Bertran, Pascal
AU - Lanos, Philippe
AU - Dufresne, Philippe
AU - Schmidt, Christoph
N1 - Funding Information:
This research benefitted from the support of multiple funding sources. This work was funded by the LaScArBx involving the universities of Bordeaux and Bordeaux-Montaigne (research programme of Agence Nationale de la Recherche ANR-10-LABX-52) through the project ChronoLoess (PB dir.). Additional funding was also provided by the University of Lausanne (CS). Pascal Bertran was supported by the Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques Préventives (Inrap) and Sebastian Kreutzer by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (CREDit, grant no. 844457) while validating the luminescence database in 2020/2021. During the final revision and submission phase, Sebastian Kreutzer was supported by the DFG Heisenberg programme (project ID: 505822867).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Copernicus GmbH. All rights reserved.
PY - 2023/10/20
Y1 - 2023/10/20
N2 - During the Last Glacial Period, the climate shift to cold conditions associated with changes in atmospheric circulation and vegetation cover resulted in the development of large aeolian systems in Europe. On a regional scale, many factors may have influenced dust dynamics, such as the latitudinal difference between the various aeolian systems and the variability of the sources of wind-Transported particles. Therefore, the assumption that the timing of aeolian deposition is strictly synchronous in Europe does not seem to be the most plausible hypothesis and needs to be evaluated. To test this assumption, the chronology of loess deposition in different European regions was investigated by studying 93 luminescence-dated loess-palaeosol sequences with their data recalculated and compiled in a single comma separated values (∗.csv) file: The ChronoLoess database. Our study shows that the two major aeolian systems, the Northern European Loess Belt (NELB) on the one hand and the systems associated with the rivers draining the Alpine Ice Sheet on the other hand, developed asynchronously. The significant deposition started at about 32g kyrg b2k for the NELB vs. 42g kyrg b2k for the perialpine loess and peaked about 2 millennia later for the former (21.8 vs. 23.9g kyrg b2k, respectively). This shift resulted mainly from the time lag between the maxima of the Alpine and Fennoscandian ice sheets, which acted as the primary sources of fine-grained particles through glacial abrasion. The major geomorphic changes that resulted from the development and decay of the Fennoscandian and British-Irish ice sheets also played an important role. Particularly, ice sheet coalescence during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) diverted meltwater fluxes through the Channel River and provided vast amounts of glacial particles available for deflation in the western NELB. The period during which the maximum mass accumulation rate was reached for each loess-palaeosol sequence is relatively homogeneous in the NELB and ranges from 30 to 19g kyrg b2k, whereas it is more scattered in the perialpine systems (>60 to 14g kyrg b2k). This probably resulted from a combination of factors, including the asynchrony of maximum valley glacier advances and local geomorphic factors. The ChronoLoess database is available at 10.5281/zenodo.7728616 (Bosq et al., 2023).
AB - During the Last Glacial Period, the climate shift to cold conditions associated with changes in atmospheric circulation and vegetation cover resulted in the development of large aeolian systems in Europe. On a regional scale, many factors may have influenced dust dynamics, such as the latitudinal difference between the various aeolian systems and the variability of the sources of wind-Transported particles. Therefore, the assumption that the timing of aeolian deposition is strictly synchronous in Europe does not seem to be the most plausible hypothesis and needs to be evaluated. To test this assumption, the chronology of loess deposition in different European regions was investigated by studying 93 luminescence-dated loess-palaeosol sequences with their data recalculated and compiled in a single comma separated values (∗.csv) file: The ChronoLoess database. Our study shows that the two major aeolian systems, the Northern European Loess Belt (NELB) on the one hand and the systems associated with the rivers draining the Alpine Ice Sheet on the other hand, developed asynchronously. The significant deposition started at about 32g kyrg b2k for the NELB vs. 42g kyrg b2k for the perialpine loess and peaked about 2 millennia later for the former (21.8 vs. 23.9g kyrg b2k, respectively). This shift resulted mainly from the time lag between the maxima of the Alpine and Fennoscandian ice sheets, which acted as the primary sources of fine-grained particles through glacial abrasion. The major geomorphic changes that resulted from the development and decay of the Fennoscandian and British-Irish ice sheets also played an important role. Particularly, ice sheet coalescence during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) diverted meltwater fluxes through the Channel River and provided vast amounts of glacial particles available for deflation in the western NELB. The period during which the maximum mass accumulation rate was reached for each loess-palaeosol sequence is relatively homogeneous in the NELB and ranges from 30 to 19g kyrg b2k, whereas it is more scattered in the perialpine systems (>60 to 14g kyrg b2k). This probably resulted from a combination of factors, including the asynchrony of maximum valley glacier advances and local geomorphic factors. The ChronoLoess database is available at 10.5281/zenodo.7728616 (Bosq et al., 2023).
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85178187939&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.5194/essd-15-4689-2023
DO - 10.5194/essd-15-4689-2023
M3 - Review Article
AN - SCOPUS:85178187939
SN - 1866-3508
VL - 15
SP - 4689
EP - 4711
JO - Earth System Science Data
JF - Earth System Science Data
IS - 10
ER -
