Aladağlar Mountain Range: A Landscape-Shaped by the Interplay of Glacial, Karstic, and Fluvial Erosion

The Aladağlar Mountain Range (AMR) is a large massif mainly composed of carbonate rocks hosting beautiful examples of glacial, karstic, and fluvial erosion. Extreme variations in climate and topography as well as the multitude of diverse geochemical conditions since the early Paleocene allowed development of huge hypogenic and epigenic karst systems. The interplay between the surface and karst drainage systems resulted in an attractive fluvial morphology with large karst springs, travertine bridges, gorges, and valleys. All of the karst valleys spreading from the heights of the AMR-hosted valley glaciers that once flowed down to 1100 m elevation. With its diverse landscape, the AMR is a promising land for tourists, backpackers, trekkers, and mountaineers. Large hanging karst springs, long rafting routes along gorges, travertine bridges, U-shaped glacial valleys and lakes, and challenging peaks are the major landscape attractions. © 2019, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.National Science Foundation, NSF 112Y087 Mount Allison University, MTA --Acknowledgements The authors thank the following institutions for their support/funding through various projects: General Directorate of Mineral Resources of Turkey (MTA), Hacettepe University Research Fund, The Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK project 112Y087), National Science Foundation (USA) and Ukrainian Speleological Association. -

Chlorine degassing constrained by cosmogenic 36Cl and radiocarbon dating of early Holocene rhyodacitic lava domes on Erciyes stratovolcano, central Turkey

The Erciyes stratovolcano in central Turkey has several young rhyodacite lava domes that show evidence of clear exposure histories but have hitherto unknown ages. We collected 27 surface samples from three volcanic domes namely Karagüllü Perikartın and Dikkartın for cosmogenic 36Cl dating. The Perikartın eruption generated a pyroclastic flow, which buried trees that were converted to charcoal. The radiocarbon (14C) dating yielded an average age of 9728 ± 110 cal. years B.P. (calibrated using Calib 7.1). We analyzed the cosmogenic 36Cl ages, however, were found that they were probably affected by Cl degassing of the magma. Our study suggests that the radiocarbon age indeed lies between the 0% Cl degassing (6.8 ± 0.5 ka, under nucleogenic 36Cl equilibrium) and the 100% degassing conditions (9.9 ± 0.6 ka, under nucleogenic 36Cl disequilibrium), which implies a partial Cl degassing (93%) during the eruption. This value is somewhat higher than earlier estimates and the difference may result from the miscalculated nucleogenic and/or low-energy neutron production of 36Cl, uncertainties arising from the corrections due to hydrogen-rich cover (i.e., snow) of lava surfaces or due to unconsidered geological complications. Our findings provide a novel approach to estimate the Cl degassing on young lavas and deliver a new evidence of the Holocene volcano-chronology of the central Anatolia. © 2018 Elsevier B.V.This work is supported by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBİTAK, project numbers 101Y002 and 107Y069 ) granted to A.Ç. and the US National Science Foundation (Grant 0115298 ) granted to M.Z. We thank A. M. Celal Şengör (İstanbul Technical University) for translating the ancient Greek to English from Strabo's book of Geography. We thank to reviewers Fred M. Phillips and Silke Mechernich and editor Heidy Mader for their help that substantially improved this paper. Appendix

Permafrost conditions in the Mediterranean region since the Last Glaciation

The relatively warm climate conditions prevailing today in the Mediterranean region limit cold geomorphological processes only to the highest mountain environments. However, climate variability during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene has led to significant spatio-temporal variations of the glacial and periglacial domain in these mountains, including permafrost conditions. Here, we examine the distribution and evolution of permafrost in the Mediterranean region considering five time periods: Last Glaciation, deglaciation, Holocene, Little Ice Age (LIA) and present-day. The distribution of inactive permafrost-derived features as well as sedimentary records indicates that the elevation limit of permafrost during the Last Glaciation was between 1000 m and even 2000 m lower than present. Permafrost was also widespread in non-glaciated slopes above the snowline forming rock glaciers and block streams, as well as meter-sized stone circles in relatively flat summit areas. As in most of the Northern Hemisphere, the onset of deglaciation in the Mediterranean region started around 19-20 ka. The ice-free terrain left by retreating glaciers was subject to paraglacial activity and intense periglacial processes under permafrost conditions. Many rock glaciers, protalus lobes and block streams formed in these recently deglaciated environments, though most of them became gradually inactive as temperatures kept rising, especially those at lower altitudes. Following the Younger Dryas glacial advance, the Early Holocene saw the last massive deglaciation in Mediterranean mountains accompanied by a progressive shift of permafrost conditions to higher elevations. It is unlikely that air temperatures recorded in Mediterranean mountains during the Holocene favoured the existence of widespread permafrost regimes, with the only exception of the highest massifs exceeding 2500-3000 m. LIA colder climate promoted a minor glacial advance and the spatial expansion of permafrost, with the development of new protalus lobes and rock glaciers in t

The Randolph Glacier Inventory: a globally complete inventory of glaciers

The Randolph Glacier Inventory (RGI) is a globally complete collection of digital outlines of glaciers, excluding the ice sheets, developed to meet the needs of the Fifth Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for estimates of past and future mass balance. The RGI was created with limited resources in a short period. Priority was given to completeness of coverage, but a limited, uniform set of attributes is attached to each of the ∼198 000 glaciers in its latest version, 3.2. Satellite imagery from 1999–2010 provided most of the outlines. Their total extent is estimated as 726 800±34 000 km2. The uncertainty, about ±5%, is derived from careful single-glacier and basin-scale uncertainty estimates and comparisons with inventories that were not sources for the RGI. The main contributors to uncertainty are probably misinterpretation of seasonal snow cover and debris cover. These errors appear not to be normally distributed, and quantifying them reliably is an unsolved problem. Combined with digital elevation models, the RGI glacier outlines yield hypsometries that can be combined with atmospheric data or model outputs for analysis of the impacts of climatic change on glaciers. The RGI has already proved its value in the generation of significantly improved aggregate estimates of glacier mass changes and total volume, and thus actual and potential contributions to sea-level rise