Resumen de Registro de la variabilidad climática de escala milenaria en el último ciclo glaciar en los sedimentos de la cuenca Argelo-Balear
J. Frigola, A. Moreno, Miquel Canals Artigas, Eva Isabel Cacho Lascorz, Elena Colmenero Hidalgo, Francisco Javier Sierro Sánchez, José Abel Flores Villarejo
Sediments from MD 99-2343 IMAGES core recovered in the Algero-Balearic Basin, north of the island of Menorca, have been analyzed for their bulk element composition and grain-size distribution to characterize the temporal evolution of the terrigenous input to this area throughout the last50 ka. The high-resolution elementary profiles show high frequency oscillations, particularly of Si,Ti and K contents, associated with terrigenous input variability. These fluctuations mark significant changes in the source areas and/or in the nature of transport and sedimentation processes mostlikely related to abrupt changes in oceanographic and atmospheric conditions. The Menorca corerecords were compared with the geochemical results of a previously studied core from the Albo-ran Sea, from where it became obvious a similar behaviour in some of the terrigeneous elementsat both core locations. The obtained records vary with a clear Dansgaard-Oeschger periodicity reaching higher values during the North Atlantic's Heinrich Events. These results evidence the presence of a millennial-scale synchronous pattern in the Western Mediterranean in terms of deposition of terrigenous material. In addition, grain-size analyses of Menorca core reveal rhythmic episodes of coarser particle inputs during the Holocene likely related to shifts in the intensity of deep-water currents.
