Climato-chronostratigraphic framework of Pleistocene terrestrial and marine deposits of Northern Eurasia, based on pollen, electron spin resonance, and infrared optically stimulated luminescence analyses

Abstract

Marine and terrestrial records spanning the Brunhes Chron (0–780 000 years) were synthesized using data from palaeoshelf, glacial, periglacial, and extraglacial zones of Northern Eurasia. The chronostratigraphic position of the identified palaeoenvironmental events and respective horizons in the compositechronostratigraphic column were established on the basis of electron spin resonance analysis of subfossil mollusc shells collected from marine, freshwater, and terrestrial deposits. Environ­ment and vegetation evolution during this period is characterized by pollen data from a series of spaced-apart reference sections on the East European Plain. The climate-chronostratigraphic record displays a sequence of eight intervals (the Holocene included) of warm climate and sea level highstand when marine sedimentation occurred on North Eurasian palaeo-shelves, and seven glacial epochs. A clear agreement between long pollen records and reliably dated warm-climate-related deposits was established for at least the last 600 000 years (from marine isotope stages 15 to 1). When integrated, these records have a potential of assigning warm/cold-climate-related deposits to the chronostratigraphically-organized sequence of the middle and late Quaternary palaeoenvironmental events