Reconstruction of Holocene hydroclimate variability in the southern central Mediterranean (Sicily) based on precisely dated speleothem multi-proxy records

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Denis Scholz, since 10/2023
• Subject Area: Palaeontology
• Term: from 2018 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 409158489

Climate change scenarios suggest that Mediterranean ecosystems could change into deserts in response to anthropogenically induced global warming with a considerable impact on society. Therefore, there is an urgent need for palaeoclimate studies on past hydrological changes in the Mediterranean region to unveil the underlying climate mechanism. Sicily is located in a key area to study past hydrologic changes during the Holocene and their relationship to changes of the atmospheric circulation.Here I propose to generate a precisely dated high-resolution Holocene speleothem multi-proxy (δ18O, δ13C, trace element concentration, petrography) record based on five individual stalagmites from Sicily (southern central Mediterranean) to reconstruct past changes in hydroclimate. For this region, precisely dated continuous high-resolution (< 10 years) records of Holocene hydroclimate changes are not available yet. The stalagmites were sampled from three cave systems, and our preliminary U-series ages show that the combined growth phases of all stalagmites cover the entire Holocene. The generated multi-proxy speleothem record will enable us to reconstruct regional hydroclimate variability on Sicily, and we will compare these results with other speleothem proxy records from the eastern and western Mediterranean as well as from northern Italy. The new proxy records will allow to investigate past changes of the atmospheric circulation by comparing it to existing high-resolution proxy records from Italy. Furthermore, the new time series will be included into the European speleothem network. We will perform a coherency analysis of the high-resolution speleothem records from this network in order to test whether large-scale atmospheric circulation changes affecting central and northern European speleothem proxy time series during the Holocene also had an influence in the southern central Mediterranean.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Ehemaliger Antragsteller: Dr. Michael Deininger, until 10/2023