EGU2020-11105, updated on 12 Jun 2020
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-11105
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Speleothem record from Pentadactylos cave (Cyprus): high-resolution insight into climatic variations during MIS 6 and MIS 5

Carole Nehme1,9, Sophie Verheyden2,9, Tobias Kluge3, Therese Weissbach3, Fadi Nader4, Salih Gucel5, Iris Charalambidou6, Hai Cheng7, Lawrence Edwards8, and Philippe Claeys9
Carole Nehme et al.
  • 1IDEES 6266 CNRS, University of Rouen Normandy, Mont Saint Aignan, France
  • 2Department of Earth and History of Life, Royal Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), Belgium
  • 3Institute of Environmental Physics, University of Heidelberg, Germany
  • 4Institut Français du Pétrole-Énergies Nouvelles, Rueil Malmaison, France
  • 5Magara Meraklıları Dernegi (NGO) Nicosia, Cyprus
  • 6Department of Life and Health Sciences, University of Nicosia, Cyprus.
  • 7Institute of Global Environmental Change, University of Xi’an Jiaotong, China
  • 8Department of Earth Sciences, University of Minnesota, USA
  • 9Analytical Environmental & Geo-Chemistry, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

An improved understanding of medium and short-term changes in temperature and rainfall in the East Mediterranean is necessary for a comprehensive description of the regional climate regime. In particular, it can help advancing current climate models and predictions. A new paleoclimate record from Cyprus gives new insights into climatic variations during MIS 6 and 5 for this region. A 66 cm long speleothem from Pentadactylos cave in the Kyrenia range (800 m asl) was extensively dated with the U/Th method and investigated for petrography, fluid inclusions, stable and clumped isotopes. The stalagmite grew from 174.6 ± 0.7 to 112.2 ± 0.5 ka BP. The growth rate varies from 31 to 5 mm/ka during the early-MIS6 and evolving from 123 to 18 mm/ka at the end-MIS6. The onset of MIS5e is marked by a high growth rate (125 mm/ka) until growth decreased drastically after 122 ka. Growth rate and stalagmite diameter as well as δ18O and δ13C curves are positively correlated. We interpret the δ18Oc signal as being controlled by effective infiltration and thus rainfall amount. Climate conditions during early-MIS6 were highly variable (δ18Oc) on a millennial-scale with several short-lived wet episodes during sapropel 6. From 141 to 132 ka, δ18Oc suggests general dry/cold conditions with low bio-pedological activity, followed by a growth stop during H11. The δ18O values during the Eemian wet period in Cyprus are driven by the source effect (sapropel 5). Stable conditions during MIS 5e were rather short: ~2 ka, as shown in the δ13C signal. After 122 ka, a slow deterioration of the soil cover coupled with low rainfall amounts during the glacial inception period show rather a regional decoupling phase. Fluid inclusions show a clear shift (4-5‰) in δ18Ow between end-MIS 6 and MIS 5e. Clumped isotopes measurements indicate kinetic effects between calcite and water of up to ~1‰. After correction for kinetics using Δ47, an estimate for the MIS6-5 temperature shift in the East-Mediterranean is >10°C.

How to cite: Nehme, C., Verheyden, S., Kluge, T., Weissbach, T., Nader, F., Gucel, S., Charalambidou, I., Cheng, H., Edwards, L., and Claeys, P.: Speleothem record from Pentadactylos cave (Cyprus): high-resolution insight into climatic variations during MIS 6 and MIS 5, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-11105, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-11105, 2020