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Constraining the onset of the Holocene “Neoglacial” over the central Italy using tephra layers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 June 2012

Giovanni Zanchetta ,
Carlo Giraudi ,
Roberto Sulpizio ,
Michel Magny ,
Russell N. Drysdale  and
Laura Sadori
Giovanni Zanchetta*
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, University of Pisa, Via S. Maria 53, 56126, Pisa, Italy INGV sez. Pisa, Via della Faggiola 32, 56100, Pisa, Italy IGG-CNR Via Moruzzi, 1, 56100, Pisa, Italy
Carlo Giraudi
Affiliation:
ENEA, C.R. Saluggia, strada per Crescentino, 41, 13040 Vercelli, Italy
Roberto Sulpizio
Affiliation:
CIRISIVU, c/o Dipartimento Geomineralogico, University of Bari, Via Orabona, 4, 70125, Bari, Italy
Michel Magny
Affiliation:
Laboratoire de Chrono-Environnement, UMR 6249 du CNRS, UFR des Sciences et Techniques, 16 route de Gray, 25 030 Besançon, France
Russell N. Drysdale
Affiliation:
Department of Resource Management and Geography, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia
Laura Sadori
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Biologia Vegetale, Università “La Sapienza”, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Roma, Italy
*
⁎Corresponding author at: Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, University of Pisa, Via S. Maria 53, 56126, Pisa, Italy. Fax: + 39 050 2215800. Email Address:zanchetta@dst.unipi.it
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Abstract

A study of six tephra layers discovered in different deposits between 1600 and 2700 m a.s.l. in the Apennine chain in central Italy allowed precise stratigraphic constraints on environmental and climatic changes between ca. 4.5 and 3.8 cal ka BP. Chemical analyses allowed the correlation of these tephra layers with the eruptions of Agnano Mt Spina (AMST) from Phlegrean Field and Avellino (AVT) from Somma–Vesuvius. Major environmental changes in the high mountains of the Central Apennines occurred just after the deposition of the AMST and predate the deposition of the AVT. At this time, renewed growth of the Calderone Glacier occurred, marking the onset of the Apennine “Neoglacial”. The presence of the AMST and AVT enabled us to make a precise, physical correlation with other archives in central Italy. Synchronization of records between sites showed that the period intervening the deposition of the AMST and AVT layers coincided with environmental changes that were not always exactly in phase. This highlights the fact that stratigraphic correlations using only radiocarbon chronologies (the most common method used for dating archives during the Holocene) could produce erroneous correlation of events, giving rise to oversimplified paleoclimatic reconstructions.

Keywords

TephrostratigraphyHoloceneCentral ItalyPaleoclimate
Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 78 , Issue 2 , September 2012 , pp. 236 - 247
Copyright
University of Washington

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