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A High-Resolution 14C Chronology Tracks Pulses of Aggradation of Glaciofluvial Sediment on the Cormor Megafan between 45 and 20 ka BP

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 March 2018

Kristina Hippe ,
Alessandro Fontana ,
Irka Hajdas  and
Susan Ivy-Ochs
Kristina Hippe*
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics, ETH Zürich, Otto-Stern-Weg 5, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland
Alessandro Fontana
Affiliation:
Università degli Studi di Padova, Dipartimento di Geoscienze, Via Gradenigo 6, 35131 Padova, Italy
Irka Hajdas
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics, ETH Zürich, Otto-Stern-Weg 5, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland
Susan Ivy-Ochs
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics, ETH Zürich, Otto-Stern-Weg 5, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland
*
*Corresponding author. Email: hippe@phys.ethz.ch.
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Abstract

During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) the Tagliamento glacier delivered large amounts of sediment to the Cormor alluvial megafan on the southern Alpine foreland basin. To build a chronology of Late Pleistocene glacier fluctuations and assess the timing of the transition from interstadial to glacial conditions, we have performed radiocarbon (14C) dating on peat and macrofossil samples obtained from a drilling core from the distal Cormor megafan. Our chronology records fluvial and glaciofluvial aggradation from the end of MIS 3 until the end of the LGM. It shows a rapid transmission of signals of environmental change along the Cormor megafan, so that changes in the activity of the Tagliamento glacier directly affect glaciofluvial sedimentation. Our data demonstrate that the intrinsic heterogeneity of peat is most critical for the reliability and reproducibility of the obtained 14C ages. Macrofossil subsamples give evidence for significant mixing of organic components of different ages within single peat samples. Sample heterogeneity is also underlined by the results obtained from testing of different laboratory precleaning methods. Our results suggest that a rigorous ABA pretreatment is sufficient for peat cleaning. In contrast, the chemically stronger ABOX methods appear to rapidly degrade the peat, particularly destroying older organic components.

Keywords

Alluvial megafanLGMradiocarbonSouthern AlpsTagliamento glacier
Type
Research Article
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 60 , Issue 3 , June 2018 , pp. 857 - 874
Copyright
© 2018 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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