Holocene and Late Pleistocene climate in the sub-Mediterranean continental environment: A speleothem record from Poleva Cave (Southern Carpathians, Romania)

The PP10 stalagmite from Poleva Cave provides a Late Pleistocene and Holocene isotopic record characteristic for the SW of Romania, a sub-Mediterranean climatic region. The speleothem was dated by eight TIMS and one alpha U-series dates which showed that it was precipitated between similar to 75 ka and similar to 2 ka with at least two hiatuses. The basal sector of the stalagmite showed a slow-growing regime of similar to 0.26 cm/ka, while the upper one grew relatively fast with about 5 cm/ka. The temporal resolution for the isotopic sampling is thus similar to 2 ka/sample for the lower sector, and similar to 150 years/sample for the upper one. The relationship between delta O-18 and temperature was found positive. The isotopic record of the lower sector shows two marked cold intervals during similar to 67 and 58 ka and similar to 40-35 ka, respectively, which correlate well with the Villars and Soreq records. The upper sector record is so far the most detailed Holocene isotopic record in Romania and the only one available for the regions located at the exterior of the Carpathians Range. The signal shows a gradual warming after the GS1 event punctuated by several cold events at similar to 8, 7.2 and 4.2 ka and also by warm oscillations centered at about 5.2 and 3.3 ka. The results seem to indicate that if the North-Atlantic first-order signals may extend well to the south-eastern Europe, their amplitude and general trend may be diminished by the interferences with the Mediterranean circulation. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.