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Quantitative Reconstruction of Younger Dryas to Mid-Holocene Paleoclimates at Le Locle, Swiss Jura, Using Pollen and Lake-Level Data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Michel Magny ,
Joël Guiot  and
Patrick Schoellammer
Michel Magny
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Chrono-Ecologie, CNRS-UMR 6565, Faculté des Sciences et Techniques, 16 route de Gray, 25030 Besançon, France, E-mail: [email protected]
Joël Guiot
Affiliation:
Insitut Méditerranéen d'Ecologie et Paléoécologie, CNRS-UPRES A 6116, Faculté de St-Jérôme, case 451, Marseille Cedex 20, 13397, France
Patrick Schoellammer
Affiliation:
Service Archéologique Cantonal, 59 Avenue du Mail, Neuchâtel, 2000, Switzerland
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Abstract

Pollen and lake-level data from Le Locle in the Swiss Jura were used to quantitatively reconstruct climatic parameters for the Younger Dryas event and the first half of the Holocene period. The Younger Dryas cold event at Le Locle was characterized by (i) a general trend toward a slight increase in summer temperature and a decrease in annual precipitation and (ii) a marked drying phase at ca. 11,900 cal yr B.P. that occurred between two wetter ones. Further phases of major deficit in moisture occured at ca. 11,500 cal yr B.P. (Younger Dryas-Holocene transition), 10,800 cal yr B.P., 8700 cal yr B.P., and 6500 cal yr B.P. Climatic parameters reconstructed here suggest that phases of higher lake level developing at ca. 12,500–12,000, 11,750–11,600, 11,200–10,900 (synchronous with the Preboreal oscillation), 10,400–8900, 8400–8300 (possibly related to the 8200 yr event), and 7800–7000 cal yr B.P. coincided with an increase in annual precipitation, a decrease in summer temperature, and a shorter growing season. Conversely, periods of low lake level corresponded to a decrease in annual precipitation, an increase in summer temperature, and a longer growing season. This general pattern could have resulted from alternate southward-northward displacements of the Atlantic Westerly Jet.

Keywords

Younger DryasHolocenequantitative paleoclimatic reconstructionlake-level fluctuationsvegetation historySwiss Jura
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 56 , Issue 2 , September 2001 , pp. 170 - 180
Copyright
University of Washington

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