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Late Quaternary paleoenvironmental record from a sedimentary fill in Cucú Cave, Almería, SE Spain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Antonio González-Ramón ,
Bartolomé Andreo ,
Antonio Ruiz-Bustos ,
David A. Richards ,
José Antonio López-Sáez  and
Francisca Alba-Sánchez
Antonio González-Ramón*
Affiliation:
Instituto Geológico y Minero de España, Urb. Alcázar del Genil, 4, Edif. Zulema bajo, Granada, Spain
Bartolomé Andreo
Affiliation:
Departamento de Geología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Málaga, Spain
Antonio Ruiz-Bustos
Affiliation:
Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra (CSIC), Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Granada, Spain
David A. Richards
Affiliation:
School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1SS, UK
José Antonio López-Sáez
Affiliation:
Grupo de Investigación Arqueobiología, Instituto de Historia, Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales, C.S.I.C., Albasanz 26-28, 28037 Madrid, Spain
Francisca Alba-Sánchez
Affiliation:
Departamento de Botánica, Facultad de Ciencias, Campus Universitario de Fuente Nueva, Universidad de Granada, 18071 Granada, Spain
*
*Corresponding author. Fax: + 34 958 122990. E-mail addresses:[email protected] (A. González-Ramón), [email protected] (B. Andreo), [email protected] (A. Ruiz-Bustos), [email protected] (D.A. Richards), [email protected] (J.A. López-Sáez), [email protected] (F. Alba-Sánchez).
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Abstract

Cucú cave is a small cavity, 1600 m above sea level on the southern slope of Sierra de María (Almería Province, SE Spain), where current mean annual precipitation is < 450 mm. Fossils and palynomorphs contained within a sedimentary sequence, up to 9 m in depth, allow us to consider the prevailing climatic conditions, and the timing of cavern development. The lithological sequence is dominated by clast-supported detrital material with no evidence of alluvial transport. These sediments were formed by freeze-cracking during periglacial conditions, causing further cave enlargement after initial solutional development. The clastic sequence formed during cold climates is covered by a flowstone that was deposited during a period of warmer, wetter conditions. This provides a minimum U–Th isochron age of 40.2±4.5 ka for the timing of periglacial action. Micromammal fossil species indicate a chronology between 140 and 80 ka. Paleoecological data based on the structure of the mammal community indicates that cold conditions prevailed at the time of deposit. In the studied sequence the presence of anthropogenic components has not been documented. The pollen assemblages identified are a common feature of Pleistocene cold stages that are in semi-arid regions.

Keywords

Cucú cavePaleoenvironmental reconstructionRodentsPollen analysisUpper PleistoceneU-series datingSE Spain
Type
Original Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 77 , Issue 2 , March 2012 , pp. 264 - 272
Copyright
University of Washington

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