Holocene speleothem-based climate record for the SW Mediterranean area (Middle Atlas; Morocco)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Adrian Immenhauser
• Subject Area: Palaeontology
• Term: from 2006 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 33340457

Climate in NW Africa is basically controlled by monsoonal circulation with seasonal shifts of the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) to the north (summer) and to the south (winter). In the recent geologic past climates in northern Africa were repeatedly wetter, but today the Atlas Mountain range forms the barrier between the seasonally humid Mediterranean climate to the north and arid Saharan climate to the south. We intend to exploit speleothems from the Atlas Belt as unique natural laboratories for the investigation of climate changes in space and time. Here, Phase I is proposed focussing on speleothems from the Middle-Atlas in the north. The subsequent phases II and III will deal with speleothems from the Anti-Atlas to the south and from the belt itself (hence involving orographic aspects). The contrast comparison of all records will allow for a high-resolution, precisely dated record of climate change across the last 125 kyr. The aims of the Atlas Climate Transect are (i) to establish a detailed, speleothem-based 125 kyr palaeoclimate record for NW Africa; (ii) to date and determine the effects of the shifting ITCZ and particularly the increasing aridity in NW Africa in key localities to the north and south of the Atlas and within the belt itself; and (iii) to assess the extent of the connection of continental with existing marine records from the Mediterranean and the E Atlantic margins of Morocco.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Detlev K. Richter