Conference:
Neogene vegetation and climate reconstruction, EEDEN /NECLIME Workshop, 15-18 September 2001, Prague, Czech Republic.
Author:
Speranta-Maria Popescu.
Abstract:
Two long pollen sequences (DSDP Site 380 in the southwestern Black Sea, Lupoaia in the Southwestern Romania) have been studied in addition to smaller ones from Romania. They provide an almost complete record of the Messinian and a continuous high-resolution record of the Lower Pliocene.
Pollen analyses have been done using the botanical identification of pollen grains and high quality countings. New information is given on paleobiodiversity as the persistence in the region of megathermic elements during the Early Pliocene. Vegetation of the two studied areas (Southwestern Black Sea and Dacic Basin) appears similarly characterized by important swamps with Taxodiaceae. Nevertheless strong differences existed as the development of altitude forests near the Carpathians and that of Artemisia steppe near Turkey.
Variations in the pollen records are in complete agreement with the reference d18O curve and the inferred climatostratigraphy has a large geographic value. So, very consistent relationships are proposed with the Northern Europe and the Northwestern Mediterranean region. In detail, vegetation response to short-term changes in temperature is evidenced which allows correlations with eccentricity forcing. Secondary fluctuations appear to be controlled by precession, i.e., the monsoon influence which seems to have been efficient in Southeast Europe at this time. For the first time, clear changes in vegetation are documented as a response to secondary climatic fluctuations during the warm Lower Pliocene.