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Paleoenvironmental Changes in the Semiarid Coast of Chile (∼32°S) during the Last 6200 cal Years Inferred from a Swamp–Forest Pollen Record

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Antonio Maldonado  and
Carolina Villagrán
Antonio Maldonado*
Affiliation:
Laboratorio de Palinología, Departamento de Biología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Chile, Casilla 653, Santiago, Chile E-mail: amaldona@icaro.dic.uchile.cl
Carolina Villagrán
Affiliation:
Laboratorio de Palinología, Departamento de Biología, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Chile, Casilla 653, Santiago, Chile
*
1To whom correspondence should be addressed.
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Abstract

Pollen analysis of two sediment records from a coastal swamp forest site in the Chilean semiarid region (31°50′S; 71°28′W) shows an alternation of dry and wet phases during the past ∼6100 cal yr B.P. The most prominent vegetation changes occur at ∼4200 cal yr B.P., with the expansion of the swamp forest taxa Luma chequen and Escallonia sp., followed by a regression of the forest beginning at ∼3200 cal yr B.P. and ending with its replacement by a xerophytic scrub, between ∼1800 and 1300 cal yr B.P. The swamp forest reexpanded after ∼1300 cal yr B.P. and persisted, with minor variation, until the present. We interpret the establishment of the swamp forest at the study site to be the result of a rising watertable in response to increased rainfalls from ∼4200 cal yr B.P. onward. Our results indicate that in north-central Chile the second half of the Holocene was climatically more variable than previously thought, suggesting significant changes in the position and/or intensity of the westerlies wind belt and possibly in the frequency of El Niño–Southern Oscillation events.

Keywords

ChileHoloceneenvironmental changepollenpaleoclimate
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , September 2002 , pp. 130 - 138
Copyright
University of Washington

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