Precise date for the Laacher See eruption synchronizes the Younger Dryas
METADATA ONLY
Loading...
Author / Producer
Date
2021-07-01
Publication Type
Journal Article
ETH Bibliography
yes
Citations
Altmetric
METADATA ONLY
Data
Rights / License
Abstract
The Laacher See eruption (LSE) in Germany ranks among Europe’s largest volcanic events of the Upper Pleistocene1,2. Although tephra deposits of the LSE represent an important isochron for the synchronization of proxy archives at the Late Glacial to Early Holocene transition3, uncertainty in the age of the eruption has prevailed4. Here we present dendrochronological and radiocarbon measurements of subfossil trees that were buried by pyroclastic deposits that firmly date the LSE to 13,006 ± 9 calibrated years before present (bp; taken as ad 1950), which is more than a century earlier than previously accepted. The revised age of the LSE necessarily shifts the chronology of European varved lakes5,6 relative to the Greenland ice core record, thereby dating the onset of the Younger Dryas to 12,807 ± 12 calibrated years bp, which is around 130 years earlier than thought. Our results synchronize the onset of the Younger Dryas across the North Atlantic–European sector, preclude a direct link between the LSE and Greenland Stadial-1 cooling7, and suggest a large-scale common mechanism of a weakened Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation under warming conditions8–10.
Permanent link
Publication status
published
External links
Editor
Book title
Journal / series
Volume
595 (7865)
Pages / Article No.
66 - 69
Publisher
Nature
Event
Edition / version
Methods
Software
Geographic location
Date collected
Date created
Subject
Climate and Earth system modelling; Environmental impact; Geography; Palaeoclimate; Volcanology
Organisational unit
08619 - Labor für Ionenstrahlphysik (LIP) / Laboratory of Ion Beam Physics (LIP)
Notes
Funding
157187 - Improving Late Glacial European tree-ring chronologies for accurate climate archive dating – Consolidation and extension of the Swiss-German pine chronology back to 14 000 BP (SNF)