- Title
- Late Holocene drought responsible for the collapse of Old World civilizations is recorded in an Italian cave flowstone
- Creator
- Drysdale, Russell; Zanchetta, Giovanni; Hellstrom, John; Maas, Roland; Fallick, Anthony; Pickett, Matthew; Cartwright, Ian; Piccini, Leonardo
- Relation
- Geology (Boulder) Vol. 34, Issue 2, p. 101-104
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/G22103.1
- Publisher
- Geological Society of America
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2006
- Description
- A severe drought in parts of low-latitude northeastern Africa and southwestern Asia ∼4200 yr ago caused major disruption to ancient civilizations. Stable isotope, trace element, and organic fluorescence data from a calcite flowstone collected from the well-watered Alpi Apuane karst of central-western Italy indicate that the climatic event responsible for this drought was also recorded in mid-latitude Europe. Although the timing of this event coincides with an episode of increased ice-rafted debris to the subpolar North Atlantic, the regional ocean-atmosphere response seems atypical of similar Holocene ice-rafting events. Furthermore, comparison of the flowstone data with other regional proxies suggests that the most extreme part of the dry spell occurred toward the end of a longer-term climate anomaly.
- Subject
- speleothems; Holocene; drought; geochemistry; Italy
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/26922
- Identifier
- uon:1222
- Identifier
- ISSN:0091-7613
- Language
- eng
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