Invited reviewA 600,000 year long continental pollen record from Lake Van, eastern Anatolia (Turkey)
Introduction
Long continental pollen records have fundamentally contributed to our understanding of millennial-scale paleoclimate variability on land in comparison to marine and ice-core records. In contrast to north-central Europe where glaciations have produced stratigraphic unconformities, complete records of terrestrial events over multiple glacial–interglacial cycles are documented in southern Europe in which a broad correspondence to the deep-sea oxygen isotope record has been noted (Tzedakis et al., 1997, Tzedakis et al., 2001). Classical records are Bouchet/Praclaux in southern France encompassing the last four climatic cycles (Reille et al., 2000), Valle di Castiglione in Italy spanning the last 250 ka (Follieri et al., 1988), a 430 ka long record at Ioannina (Tzedakis, 1994a), and a 1.35 million year long record at Tenaghi Philippon, both in Greece (Wijmstra, 1969, Wijmstra and Smit, 1976, Tzedakis et al., 2006).
However, our knowledge about the vegetation and climate development during the past glacial–interglacial cycles in the Near East based on continental sedimentary sequences is rather poor. To date, the longest pollen record for the continental interior of the Near East has been described on two 100 m cores from Lake Urmia in north-western Iran spanning around 200 ka (Djamali et al., 2008). Lake Van, a terminal lake located on the high plateau of eastern Anatolia in Turkey, has therefore been chosen as an additional target to obtain a long continental record of multiple glacial–interglacial cycles.
First palynological studies from Lake Van were published by Van Zeist and Woldring (1978). However, uncertainties in the varve chronology established by Kempe and Degens (1978) did not allow a correlation with radiocarbon-dated Lateglacial/Postglacial pollen diagrams in the vicinity of Lake Van such as Lake Urmia and Lake Zeribar (Van Zeist and Bottema, 1977, Van Zeist and Bottema, 1991, Bottema, 1986). Further paleoecological investigations were made on annually laminated sediment cores drilled in 1990 (Wick et al., 2003). The pollen record, spanning about 13 ka documents evidence of Lateglacial and Holocene climatic changes as well as human impact in this semi-arid region of eastern Anatolia. As preparation for a deep drilling campaign under the umbrella of the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP), a site survey was carried out in 2004 (Litt et al., 2009). Based on the seismic results, we cored different locations to water depths of up to 420 m. Multidisciplinary scientific work at position of a proposed ICDP drill site (Ahlat Ridge) included investigations on magnetic susceptibility, physical properties, stable isotopes, XRF scans, and pollen and spores (Litt et al., 2009). This core extends back to the Last Glacial Maximum (ca 20 ka). The results improved the potential of this locality for obtaining an almost continuous and undisturbed long continental paleoclimate record, which was finally drilled in 2010 (Litt et al., 2011, Litt et al., 2012). In this paper we present first palynological results of a 119 m long composite profile from Ahlat Ridge drilled in water depth of 375 m with millennial-scale time resolution.
Section snippets
Study area
Lake Van is situated on the eastern Anatolian high plateau (Turkey) close to the border to Iran (38.5°N, 43°E, Fig. 1). The 460 m deep lake lies within a tectonic depression with a maximum extension of 130 km ENE–WSW. The present lake level is at 1646 m above sea level (a.s.l.). With a surface area of about 3570 km2 and a volume of ca 607 km3, Lake Van is the fourth largest terminal lake and the largest soda lake on earth. High carbonate concentrations, active regional volcanism of Nemrut and
Lithostratigraphy of the sediment cores
The Ahlat Ridge (AR) sediment cores of the 2010 drilling campaign were opened at the IODP core repository located at MARUM, University of Bremen in spring 2011 by the Paleovan scientific team (Litt et al., 2012). After core description and correlation of the seven parallel cores (multiple coring) a composite profile recovering a sedimentary record of 219 mcblf (meter composite below sea floor; average discovery 91%) were constructed based on the sedimentary pattern of laminated intervals and
Pollen zonation
The distribution of pollen in percent along the Ahlat Ridge record is illustrated in a simplified pollen diagram based on sediment depth of the composite profile including event layers (see Fig. 2). The pollen record can be subdivided into 11 biozones on the basis of changes in the trees and shrubs versus herbs ratio (arboreal pollen (AP) versus non-arboreal pollen (NAP)) and changes in the relative frequency of individual taxa. The features of biozones as well as criteria for defining the
Conclusions
Lacustrine sediments of Lake Van drilled in 2010 yield the longest continental pollen record in the entire Near East and central Asia obtained to date encompassing the last 600 ka. The multi-millennial-scale resolved (average ca 3 ka, see Fig. 4) Lake Van pollen record documents the glacial and interglacial stages as well as the most pronounced interstadials clearly as increase of thermophilous oak and/or additional arboreal pollen types.
In general, the glacial/stadial vegetation in the Lake
Acknowledgments
This is a contribution to the Lake Van Drilling Project PALEOVAN funded by the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP), the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (Tübitak). We thank the University of Yüzüncü Yil in Van (Turkey) for logistic support and DOSSEC for operating the deep lake drilling. We thank the whole PALEOVAN science team for support during collection and
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