Environmental response to climatic and volcanic events in NE Anatolia during the last 20,000 years based on annually laminated sediments from Lake Van
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
Lake Van on the high plateaus of eastern Anatolia in Turkey has a surface area of 3,522 km2, a volume of 576 km3, a maximum depth of 451 m, and extends for 130 km WSW-ENE. It is the fourth largest terminal lake in the world. The Lake Van records with their annually laminated lacustrine sediments provide an extremely high time resolution. Sediment cores with intercalated volcanic ash layers (tephras) drilled in 2004 are excellent archives to trace short-term effects of volcanic eruptions on vegetation. To determine environmental response to volcanic events in the Lake Van region, highresolution pollen samples below and above several tephra layers have been analysed based on an annual scale. Depending on the deposition mode of tephras and the amplitude of eruptions, the pollen data reflect the environmental impact related to some of these volcanic events. Nemrut volcano located close to the W margin of Lake Van is the source of Holocene tephras in the sediment cores. In particular, the eruption at 2650 years ago was responsible for widespread devastation of the vegetation. Herbaceous taxa recovered the tephra plains soon while trees such as oaks regenerated ca 40 years after the eruption. In addition, environmental response to climatic events during the Weichselian Lateglacial has been investigated to compare both volcanic and climatic effects on vegetation with respect to rate of change, reaction and regeneration.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
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(2009). „PALEOVAN“, International Continental Scientific Drilling Program, (ICDP): Results of a recent site survey and perspectives. Quaternary Science Reviews 28: 1555-1567
Litt, T., Krastel, S., Sturm, M., Kipfer, R., Örcen, S., Heumann, G., Franz, S.O., Ülgen, U.B., Niessen, F.
