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The Würm in NW Iberia, A pollen record from Area Longa (Galicia)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Luis Gómez-Orellana ,
Pablo Ramil-Rego  and
Castor Muñoz Sobrino
Luis Gómez-Orellana*
Affiliation:
GI-TTB Lab. Botánica & Biogeografía, IBADER, Universidade de Santiago, E-27002 Lugo, Spain
Pablo Ramil-Rego
Affiliation:
GI-TTB Lab. Botánica & Biogeografía, IBADER, Universidade de Santiago, E-27002 Lugo, Spain
Castor Muñoz Sobrino
Affiliation:
Departamento de Biología Vexetal e Ciencias do Solo, Facultade de Ciencias, Universidade de Vigo, Campus de Marcosende s/n, E-36200 Vigo, Spain
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail address:bvgomor@usc.es (L. Gómez-Orellana).
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Abstract

The pollen record at Area Longa is the westernmost sequence available for investigation of the last glaciation in continental Europe. It is located in a region, NW Iberia, for which data from times earlier than the late glacial period are scarce. It comprises a series of exposed limnetic levels that lie above an Eemian (Oxygen Isotope Stage [OIS] 5e) beach and are separated by inorganic layers. The oldest limnetic level (Level I), attributed to the early glacial period (OIS 5a to OIS 5d), shows a dominance of woodland with high proportions of Fagus pollen and is tentatively identified with St. Germain I. The lower pleniglacial (OIS 4) Level II records a stadial landscape of grassland and shrub. Level III, from the pleniglacial interstade (OIS 3), reflects a complex period in which three warmer woodland phases alternated with periods of more open vegetation. This cyclical behavior correlates with the ice core isotope record and with the general tendencies observed in other Würmian pollen records, but the composition of our pollen profiles differs from those observed in these other records. In NW Iberia, the dominant trees were deciduous taxa, not conifers. Of particular note is the presence of lowland Fagus woodlands during the pre-Würm, and the occurrence of Carpinus considerably farther west than the boundary of its current distribution in the Iberian Peninsula.

Keywords

Pollen recordVegetation dynamicsLate PleistoceneWürmDeciduous forest
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 67 , Issue 3 , May 2007 , pp. 438 - 452
Copyright
University of Washington

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