Peat core sequence in the Northern Carpathians, Romania. Fire and mining activities relationship over the late Holocene

We aimed to understand relationship between fire and mining activities over the late Holocene, to predict modifications in study area are conditioned by climate change, and ongoing global warming could lead to wildfire changes or mining can cause change in landscapes, in region especially peatlands at mid-altitude. The reconstruction of long-term (thousands of years) wildfire regime and activity is possible by analyzing the abundance of carbonaceous vegetation fragments (charcoal) preserved in sediments accumulated in different depositional environments (e.g., peatlands). Charcoal is proxy used for reconstructing regional changes in wildfire regime and anthropogenic activity such as mining history, local soil and bedrock erosion was also reconstructed using a multi-proxy method: geochemistry, magnetic mineral properties and particle size analysis. Was analyzed sedimentary macroscopic charcoal from the Taul Mare (TG) peat bog, located in Lapus Mountains, northern Carpathians, Romania. The statistically analyses use a variate ordination method principal component analysis (PCA). The PCA was used to correlate fire regime, charcoal accumulation rate (CHAR), geochemistry, magnetic mineral properties and particle size using PAST4.11 software. Our results show correlation between morphological charcoal (e.g., wood, grass, etc.) in opposition with magnetic mineral properties and particle size having the highest values. This may be interpreted as reflecting climate change caused by anthropogenic activity in special mining having consequence in landscapes with changes in wildfire regime. The main results of PCA point to conclude the following: wildfire increase following anthropogenic activities; increases in wildfire have generally been accompanied by episodes of increased landscape openness and pastoral activities; the study area followed the mid-elevation mountains and proximity to landscape resources, pasture and mining. In conclusion our results show direct connection with statistically significant link between fire severity and magnetic mineral concentration, and direct relation between fires and erosion (regardless of severity). This study can offer information about previously unstudied environmental history in mid-elevation mountains, of the Northern Carpathians and highlights the importance of studies that what can improve our understanding of the fire regime caused by mining activities.