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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2018

Carole Nehme ,
Sophie Verheyden ,
Sebastian F.M. Breitenbach ,
David P. Gillikin ,
Anouk Verheyden ,
Hai Cheng ,
R. Lawrence Edwards ,
John Hellstrom ,
Stephen R. Noble  and
Andrew R. Farrant
...Show all authors
Carole Nehme*
Affiliation:
Analytical, Environmental & Geo-Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
Sophie Verheyden
Affiliation:
Royal Belgian institute of natural sciences, directorate of earth and history of life, Brussels & associate researcher at Vrije Universiteit, Brussel, Belgium
Sebastian F.M. Breitenbach
Affiliation:
Sediment- & Isotope Geology, Ruhr-Universität, Bochum, Germany
David P. Gillikin
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Union College, 807 Union St, Schenectady, NY 12308, USA
Anouk Verheyden
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Union College, 807 Union St, Schenectady, NY 12308, USA
Hai Cheng
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN 55455, USA Institute of Global Environmental Change, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China
R. Lawrence Edwards
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis MN 55455, USA
John Hellstrom
Affiliation:
Geochemistry Laboratory, Earth Science Department, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Stephen R. Noble
Affiliation:
NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG, United Kingdom
Andrew R. Farrant
Affiliation:
British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG, United Kingdom
Diana Sahy
Affiliation:
British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG, United Kingdom
Thomas Goovaerts
Affiliation:
Geological Survey of Belgium, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Brussels, Belgium
Ghada Salem
Affiliation:
Association Libanaise d'Etudes speleologiques, Mansourieh El-Matn Lebanon
Philippe Claeys
Affiliation:
Analytical, Environmental & Geo-Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
*
*Corresponding author at: Laboratoire UMR IDEES 6266 CNRS, 7, Rue Thomas Becket 76280, Mont Saint-Aignan, France. E-mail address: carole.nehme@univ-rouen.fr (C. Nehme).
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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 and ~154 ka are most probably linked to increased water recharge and thus more humid conditions. More distinct layering in the upper part of the speleothem suggests strong seasonality from ~163 ka to ~154 ka. Short-term oxygen and carbon isotope excursions were found between ~155 and ~163 ka. The inferred Kanaan Cave humid intervals during the mid–MIS 6 follow variations of pollen records in the Mediterranean basins and correlate well with the synthetic Greenland record and East Asian summer monsoon interstadial periods, indicating short warm/wet periods similar to the Dansgaard-Oeschger events during MIS 4–3 in the eastern Mediterranean region.

Keywords

Penultimate glacialStable isotopesLebanonSpeleothemMillennial-scale oscillations
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 90 , Issue 1 , July 2018 , pp. 10 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © University of Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2018 

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