Small endorheic basin sediments along a climatic gradient as paleoenvironmental archives

 

Understanding and quantifying the natural variability and evolution of past climate systems require the use of datasets that are considerably long, continuous, and of broad spatial coverage. However, common terrestrial proxies, specifically in low- and mid-latitude could be puzzling due to the diversity of climate systems that records a mixed and regionally wide signal that fails to detect the short-term and transitional climate variability. In Holocene records, which are often used to study human-environment interactions, these resolutions are critical.

Here we explore the potency of deposits that are filling endorheic (internally drained) basins of not more than several km² in size to serve as paleoenvironmental archives. We focus on three sites spread along a steep, ~150 km long climatic gradient in Israel that are influenced by several atmospheric circulation patterns. Core-drilled sediments acquired from such basins have undergone sequential analyses to characterize their textural, geochemical, and luminescence properties. Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating, applied to construct a chronological framework, is coupled with port/pulsed OSL (POSL) analyses, mainly to analyze sedimentation trends and target samples for OSL dating.

The geomorphic and sedimentological responses to environmental perturbations of the late Quaternary are reflected distinctly in each site. Changes in depositional environments that occur throughout all sites often point to similar regional climatic trends, and are partly synchronous with established climatic events.  The compiled interpretation from several sites along a given climatic transect is anticipated to form a robust regional paleoenvironmental framework that can serve a wide range of Quaternary studies.