The Eastern Mediterranean paleoclimate as a reflection of regional events: Soreq cave, Israel
Abstract
The climate of the Eastern Mediterranean region of the last 60 ky was determined by a high resolution study of the oxygen and carbon isotopic composition (1500 measurement pairs) of speleothems from the Soreq cave, Israel, with chronology provided by 53 precise ^(230)Th–^(234)U (TIMS) ages. The high precision of the speleothem TIMS ages permits us to determine the timing of regional climatic events in the Eastern Mediterranean region and to see if they correlate with global events. During the period from 60 to 17 ky, the δ^(18)O and δ^(13)C values were generally 2–2.5‰ higher than during the period from 17 ky to present. This is consistent with the climatic transition from glacial to interglacial. Within the 60 to 17 ky period, the Soreq cave stable isotope profile includes four cold peaks (at 46, 35, 25 and 19 ky) and 2 warm peaks (at 54 and 36 ky). In addition, the period <17 ky has two more cold peaks at 16.5 and from 13.2 to 11.4 ky. The ages of four of the six cold peaks correlate well with the ages of three Heinrich events (H1, H2, H5) and with the age of the Younger Dryas. However, the other two Heinrich events are not reflected in the Soreq cave record. Several other isotope peaks which appear during the last 7 ky are contemporaneous with regional climatic events in the Middle East and North Africa. In addition to the drop in δ^(18)O and δ^(13)C observed between the last glacial and the Holocene, sharp simultaneous drops in (^(234)U/^(238)U)_0 ratios, Sr concentrations and in ^(87)Sr/^(86)Sr are also observed, suggesting that the latter are climate related. These variations are interpreted in terms of major changes in the temperature, the mean annual rainfall and its isotopic composition, the isotopic composition of the Mediterranean vapor source, the soil moisture conditions, and in the mixing proportions of sources with different ^(87)Sr/^(86)Sr ratios (sea spray, dust particles and dolomitic host rock).
Additional Information
© 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. Received 4 June 1998; accepted 9 December 1998. This research was supported by The Israel Science Foundation founded by The Academy of Sciences and Humanities. We are greatly indebted to Dr. Bassam Ghaleb of the Université du Québec à Montréal for about half of the TIMS ages and to Prof. Ross Stevenson of the same institution for the Sr isotope analyses. We thank the editor M. Kastner, T. Atkinson and the two anonymous reviewers for formal reviews that improved this manuscript. G.J. Wasserburg was supported by a grant from US Department of Energy, DE-FG03,13ER13851. Division Contribution 8511(991). [MK]Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 42535
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20131118-142849164
- Israeli Science Foundation
- DE-FG03-13ER13851
- Department of Energy (DOE)
- Created
-
2013-11-18Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Other Numbering System Name
- Lunatic Asylum Lab
- Other Numbering System Identifier
- 991