New insights into Southern Caucasian glacial–interglacial climate conditions inferred from Quaternary gastropod fauna

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Christiane Richter - , Heisenberg Chair of Physical Geography with a Focus on Paleoenvironmental Research (Author)
  • Daniel Wolf - , Chair of Physical Geography (Author)
  • Frank Walther - , University of Hamburg (Author)
  • Stefan Meng - , University of Greifswald (Author)
  • Lilit Sahakyan - , National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia (Author)
  • Hayk Hovakimyan - , National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia (Author)
  • Tilmann Wolpert - , Justus Liebig University Giessen (Author)
  • Markus Fuchs - , Justus Liebig University Giessen (Author)
  • Dominik Faust - , TUD Dresden University of Technology (Author)

Abstract

In the present study, we performed gastropod analyses on loess–palaeosol sequences from northeast Armenia (Southern Caucasia) covering at least three glacial–interglacial cycles. The elaborated ecostratigraphy shows significant patterns of species composition related to the succession of pedocomplexes and loess, respectively. Pedocomplexes included species that can be associated with high-grass to forest-steppe biomes, indicating increased humidity for these sections compared to the loess layers. In contrast, loess layers that relate to glacial periods are associated with gastropod species of semidesert environments with shrub- and shortgrass-steppes, indicating semiarid to arid conditions. Furthermore, the loess deposits do not show any evidence for cold-adapted gastropod species. Therefore, we suggest that average July temperatures in the study area were above 10 °C, even during periods of loess deposition. Consequently, we propose that the limiting factor for tree growth during glacial periods was aridity, rather than temperature. In addition, we observe environmental differences between the various glacial times, with our results indicating a trend towards steadily increasing aridity in Southern Caucasia across the Middle to Late Pleistocene.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)634-649
Number of pages16
JournalJournal of Quaternary Science
Volume35
Issue number5
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2020
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0003-2365-2899/work/142233342
ORCID /0000-0002-0772-2984/work/142255901

Keywords

Keywords

  • Armenia, land snails, molluscs, palaeosol, stratigraphy