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High-Resolution Pollen record from Core KW31, Gulf of Guinea, Documents the History of the Lowland Forests of West Equatorial Africa since 40,000 yr ago

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Anne-Marie Lezine  and
Jean-Pierre Cazet
Anne-Marie Lezine
Affiliation:
Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, UMR 1572 CNRS-CEA, Orme des Merisiers, 91191 Gif-sur-Y »vette, cedex, France
Jean-Pierre Cazet
Affiliation:
Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, UMR 1572 CNRS-CEA, Orme des Merisiers, 91191 Gif-sur-Y »vette, cedex, France
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Abstract

Pollen data from core KW31 recovered off the mouth of the Niger River (3°31′1N–05°34ʺ1E; 1181 m water depth) provide an exceptional record of vegetation changes in the West African lowlands between 40,000 and 3500 cal yr B.P. The highly diverse microflora testify for the permanency of rain and secondary forests in the Niger river catchment, at least as gallery formations along rivers, during the last glacial period when dry conditions occurred in relation to enhanced trade-wind circulation. The direct consequence of the post-glacial warming and the correlative increase in monsoon fluxes over West Africa was the increase in forest diversity and the expansion of rain and secondary forests on the nearby continent. Comparison between KW31 pollen record and continental pollen data from 5°S to 25°N allows the evaluation of migration rates of tropical forest populations throughout North West Africa at the beginning of the Holocene and the vegetation response to the shift toward aridity recorded widely at the end of the African Humid Period around 4000 cal yr B.P.

Keywords

Marine palynologyAfrican rain forestGulf of GuineaPalaeoenvironmentLate Quaternary
Type
Special issue articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 64 , Issue 3 , November 2005 , pp. 432 - 443
Copyright
University of Washington

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