Mediterranean climate since the Middle Pleistocene

Permanent Quaternary hyperaridity in the Negev, Israel, resulting from regional tectonics blocking Mediterranean frontal systems

Although various episodes of wet Quaternary climates have been suggested in studies of the Negev Desert, here we demonstrate that Reg soils, developed on flat alluvial surfaces and sensitive to minor changes in precipitation, indicate that the southern Negev has been permanently hyperarid at least since the middle Pleistocene. The wetter episodes were restricted to the northern Negev, currently...

Soil evolution over the Quaternary period in a Mediterranean climate (SE Spain)

Palaeosols in the Granada Basin (SE Spain) have been studied in two different situations: surface soils on geomorphically stable surfaces since the Early Pleistocene with younger pedogenic overprinting and buried soils on unstable surfaces from the Middle–Late Pleistocene on which successive erosional–depositional episodes have alternated with pedogenic episodes. For each soil clay and iron acc...

Fossil whale barnacles from the lower Pleistocene of Sicily shed light on the coeval Mediterranean cetacean fauna

We report on three shells of whale barnacle (Cirripedia: Coronulidae) collected from Pleistocene shallow-marine deposits exposed at Cinisi (northwestern Sicily, southern Italy). These specimens are identified as belonging to the extinct species Coronula bifida BRONN, 1831. Calcareous nannoplankton analysis of the sediment hosting the coronulid remains places the time of deposition between 1.93 ...

180,000 Years of Climate Change in Europe: Avifaunal Responses and Vegetation Implications

Providing an underutilized source of information for paleoenvironmental reconstructions, birds are rarely used to infer paleoenvironments despite their well-known ecology and extensive Quaternary fossil record. Here, we use the avian fossil record to investigate how Western Palearctic bird assemblages and species ranges have changed across the latter part of the Pleistocene, with focus on the l...

Finding Environmental Opportunities for Early Sea Crossings: An Agent-Based Model of Middle to Late Pleistocene Mediterranean Coastal Migration