Late-Holocene climate and vegetation dynamics in eastern Lesotho highlands

• The eastern Lesotho highlands are of considerable hydrological importance to southern Africa as a so-called water tower' for the surrounding region. Here, we contribute proxy-data inferring climate and vegetation changes over the past 1600 years, assessing in parallel inorganic and organic chemical analyses on a sediment core from Ladybird wetland, eastern Lesotho. Several proxies were used to determine changes in local vegetation dynamics, productivity, hydrology ((13) C, (15) N, C/N, TOC) and the input and source of the detrital components (Ca/Ti, CIA). The first part of the multi-proxy record (AD 400-800) shows stable terrestrial conditions and low detrital input, followed by higher variability in almost all proxies between ca. AD 900 and 1200. The (13) C record infers a higher proportion of C-4 vegetation, tentatively associated with higher temperatures during this phase, coeval with the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA). After AD 1200, local conditions change gradually from purely terrestrial, towards the typical wetland environment prevailing today. A higher proportion of C-3 plants and possibly an increase in aquatic organisms within the organic matrix corresponds with decreasing detrital input, suggesting locally high available moisture in this part of Lesotho during the Little Ice Age (LIA). Although age-model constraints impedes a robust regional comparison, the inferred climate variability is discussed as a tentative response to enhanced mid-latitude cyclonic activity during LIA, and the variable MCA climate conditions as indirectly dictated by changes in solar activity.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Naturgeografi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Physical Geography (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

carbon isotope composition

geochemistry

Lesotho

palaeoclimate

palaeohydrology

palaeovegetation

Southern Africa

XRF

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)