Conference:
RCMNS 14th Congres, Istanbul, Turkey, 8-12 September 2013, p.104.
Authors:
Jean-Pierre Suc, Séverine Fauquette, Speranta-Maria Popescu, Gonzalo Jiménez -Moreno, Naima Bachiri-Taoufik, Demet Biltekin.
Abstract:
Estimation of palaeoaltitudes is essential for past climate modeling. The Mediterranean region is surrounded by important massifs which significantly uplifted during the Late Miocene and Early Pliocene. The Mediterranean and peripheral sedimentary basins are rich in pollen records, which, if they are properly processed from the botanical viewpoint, reliably inform on vegetation belts of their respective nearby massif. These pollen records show that different coniferous taxa populated the highest altitudinal forest belt (Cathaya, Cedrus and Tsuga, Abies and Picea), according to temperature evolution along the time interval 14 – 4 Ma and to latitude of the massifs. The ‘Climatic Amplitude Method’ has been performed on the pollen data for quantifying climatic parameters (Fauquette et al., 1998). At the same time, and because this method discriminates thermophilous plants from others, which may inhabit altitudinal places, it has also been applied for palaeoaltitude reconstructions (Fauquette et al., 1999; Jiménez-Moreno et al., 2008; Melinte-Dobrinescu et al., 2009; Suc and Fauquette, 2012; Fauquette and Combourieu-Nebout, 2013). An overview of altitudinal organization of vegetation is presented for the peri-Mediterranean massifs from the Serravallian to Zanclean with palaeoaltitude estimates.