Abrupt last glacial dust fall over southeast England associated with dynamics of the British-Irish ice sheet

© 2020 Elsevier Ltd Loess deposits in southern Britain contain a record of dust, climate and landscape dynamics over the last glacial, yet their age and accumulation rate remain poorly known. Furthermore, the environmental controls on the loess-soil stratigraphy shown in the thickest deposits in southeast England are still debated. Here we apply the first high sampling resolution quartz optically stimulated luminescence study of dust accumulation and loess formation in Britain at the Pegwell Bay site in east Kent. We couple this to mineral magnetic, particle size and geochemical analyses to understand climate, environment and post depositional modification of the loess. The luminescence ages and Bayesian age modelling results suggest two phases of greatly enhanced dust accumulation at the site. Loess began to accumulate around c. 25–23.5 ka, coinciding with Heinrich event 2, and after subsequent lower accumulation rates, a second enhanced phase of deposition occurred at around 20–19 ka. We propose a model where the dynamics of the British-Irish and Fennoscandian Ice Sheets, associated glacial lake drainage, and linked reorganisations of atmospheric circulation, all controlled loess accumulation in southern Britain. Accumulation in the first phase was triggered by increased sediment supply from initial retreat of the North Sea ice lobe, and drainage of Dogger Lake. Loess accumulation during this phase was enhanced by easterly winds from Atlantic depressions tracking to the south of Britain, caused by the maximum extent of the Irish Sea Ice Stream at c. 25–24 ka. The subsequent retreat of the western part of the British Irish Ice Sheet then allowed storm tracking further north, which reduced effectiveness of dust transporting winds across southern Britain, while sediment supply and availability was reduced in North Sea source areas. A second retreat of the maximum extent of the North Sea Lobe of ice after c. 21–20 ka would have led to another abrupt input of sediment-rich ice dammed lake and meltwater from eastern England and the North Sea into the exposed southern North Sea area. This would have again dramatically increased sediment availability for transport and deposition as loess in SE England, resulting in the second dust accumulation phase. We also propose that the abrupt stratigraphic change from calcareous to non-calcareous loess up section at Pegwell Bay was driven, not by these changes in dust input, but rather deepening of the permafrost active layer after c. 21 ka. This deepening was associated with warmer and wetter conditions driven by Atlantic storms tracking further north following the regression of the Irish Sea Ice Stream and overall ice sheet retreat. As such, last glacial dust dynamics and loess accumulation in Britain is highly influenced by the interaction of the British Irish Ice Sheet the Fennoscandian Ice sheet, Atlantic storm tracks, and the topography and drainage of the exposed North Sea

Intermittent non-axial dipolar-field dominance of twin Laschamp excursions

Geomagnetic excursions represent the dynamic nature of the geodynamo. Accumulated palaeomagnetic records indicate that such excursions are dominated by dipolar-fields, but exhibit different structures. Here we report a palaeomagnetic record from the varved sediments of Lake Suigetsu, central Japan, which reveals fine structures in the Laschamp Excursion and a new post-Laschamp excursion that coincides with the Δ14C maxima. The record’s high-resolution chronology provides IntCal20 mid-ages and varve-counted durations. Both excursions comprise multiple subcentennial directional-swings. Simulations of filtering effects on sediment-magnetisations demonstrate that this high-resolution record replicates most of the features in existing, lower-resolution Laschamp excursion records, including the apparent clockwise open-loop of the virtual geomagnetic pole pass. The virtual geomagnetic poles during the ‘swing’ phases make four clusters centred in hemispherically-symmetric regions, three of which encompass the virtual geomagnetic poles associated with the Laschamp Excursion recorded in lavas at various locations. The stationary dipolar-field sources under each cluster should have intermittently dominated one after another during the excursions

Redescription and phylogenetic relationships of Spermophilus citelloides (Rodentia: Sciuridae: Xerinae), a ground squirrel from the Middle Pleistocene – Holocene of Central Europe

Spermophilus citelloides is a poorly known Old World ground squirrel from the Middle Pleistocene – early Holocene of Central Europe that has only been briefly described previously. Here, we expand our understanding of its craniodental morphology by providing the first detailed description of numerous S. citelloides materials from five Late Pleistocene and early Holocene localities of Hungary and Slovakia. Spermophilus citelloides is recognised as a valid species that is characterised by a shallow, gently domed skull with massive and short rostrum, broad interorbital region, strong zygomatic process of the frontal, posteromedially expanding lacrimal, posteriorly narrowed hard palate, wedge-shaped horizontal process of the palatine, small to absent suboptic foramen, thin condyloid neck of the mandible, M3 possessing a metaloph, and anteroposteriorly elongated m3 with strong hypoconulid and entoconulid. A cladistic analysis of 103 craniodental characters scored across 32 ingroup taxa recovers S. citelloides as the sister taxon of living spotted ground squirrel, S. suslicus, thus confirming the hypothesis of close phylogenetic relationships between the taxa. These relationships are further confirmed by the geometric morphometric analysis of the occlusal outlines of the premolars and molars. The alternative hypothesis allying S. citelloides with S. citellus is not supported by our analyses