A stalactite record of four relative sea-level highstands during the Middle Pleistocene Transition

QUATERNARY SCIENCE REVIEWS

卷:173

Article

Stocchi, Paolo^1,2  Antonioli, Fabrizio³  Montagna, Paolo⁴  Pepe, Fabrizio⁵  Lo Presti, Valeria³  Caruso, Antonio⁵  Corradino, Marta⁵  Dardanelli, Gino⁶  Renda, Pietro⁵  Frank, Norbert⁷  Douville, Eric⁸  Thil, Francois⁸  de Boer, Bas⁹  Ruggieri, Rosario^10,11  Sciortino, Rosanna⁶  Pierre, Catherine¹² 

[1] NIOZ Royal Netherlands Inst Sea Res, Dept Coastal Syst COS, POB 59, NL-1790 AB Den Burg, Netherlands

[2] Univ Utrecht, POB 59, NL-1790 AB Den Burg, Netherlands

[3] ENEA Natl Agcy New Technol Energy & Environm, Via Anguillarese 301, I-00060 Rome, Italy

[4] CNR, ISMAR, Via Gobetti 101, I-40129 Bologna, Italy

[5] Univ Palermo, Dipartimento Sci Terra Mare, Via Archirafi 22, Palermo, Italy

[6] Univ Palermo, DICAM, Viale Sci,Ed 8, I-90128 Palermo, Italy

[7] Heidelberg Univ, Neuenheimer Feld 229, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany

[8] CNRS CEA UVSQ, UMR 8212, LSCE IPSL, F-91198 Gif Sur Yvette, France

[9] Univ Utrecht, IMAU, Utrecht, Netherlands

[10] CIRS Ctr Ibleo Ric Speleoidrogeol, Via Torrenuova 87, I-97100 Ragusa, Italy

[11] Univ Nova Gor, SI-5000 Nova Gorica, Slovenia

[12] LOCEAN, Paris, France

关键词: Interglacial(s);    Pleistocene;    Sea level changes;    Western Europe;    Speleothems;    Corals;    Stable isotopes;    U-Th dating;    Sr-87/Sr-86 ages;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.quascirev.2017.08.008

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Ice-sheet and sea-level fluctuations during the Early and Middle Pleistocene are as yet poorly understood. A stalactite from a karst cave in North West Sicily (Italy) provides the first evidence of four marine inundations that correspond to relative sea-level highstands at the time of the Middle Pleistocene Transition. The speleothem is located similar to 97 m above mean sea level as result of Quaternary uplift. Its section reveals three marine hiatuses and a coral overgrowth that fixes the age of final marine ingression at 1.124 +/- 0.2, thus making this speleothem the oldest stalactite with marine hiatuses ever studied to date. Scleractinian coral species witness light-limited conditions and water depth of 20-50 m. Integrating the coral-constrained depth with the geologically constrained uplift rate and an ensemble of RSL scenarios, we find that the age of the last marine ingression most likely coincides with Marine Isotope Stage 35 on the basis of a probabilistic assessment. Our findings are consistent with a significant Antarctic ice-sheet retreat. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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