Climate changes at Lake Shkodra (Albania): the last 4500 years

Laura Sadori (*), Giovanni Zanchetta (**), Aurélien Van Welden (***), Ilaria Baneschi (****), Russel Drysdale (°), Marco Giardini (*), Elsa Gliozzi (°°,°°°), Ilaria Mazzini (°°°) & Neil Roberts(°°°°)
(*) Dipartimento di Biologia Ambientale, Università "La Sapienza", Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Roma, Italy. E-mail: laura.sadori@uniroma1.it (**) Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, University of Pisa, Via S. Maria 53, 56126 Pisa, Italy. (***) Geological Survey of Norway (NGU), 7491 Trondheim, Norway. (****) IGG-CNR, sezione di Pisa, Via Moruzzi 1, 56100 Pisa, Italy. (°) Environmental and Climate Change Group, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan NSW 2308, Australia. (°°) Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Roma Tre, Largo San Leonardo Murialdo 1, 00146 Roma, Italy. (°°°) IGAG-CNR, Via Salaria Km 29,300, 00015 Monterotondo Stazione (RM), Italy. (°°°°) School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, Devon, PL4 8AA, UK.

Lake Shkodra is a wide basin located at the Albania/Montenegro border. Few kms of steep mountain slopes separate the lake from the Adriatic Sea, Three parallel overlapping cores down to the depth of 7.26 m have been used for palaeomagnetic, tephra, isotope, diatom, pollen, and microcharcoal analyses. The chronological framing of the record, spanning approximately the last 4500 years, has been assessed using 3 210Pb, 4 14C AMS dates al and 4 well-known tephra layers. The presence of such characteristic Italian volcanic ashes provides a relatively good chronology for the second half of the Holocene. The δ18Oc record indicates the presence of two prominent wet phases: one centered at ca. 4300 cal yr BP, and one at ca. 2400-2000 yr cal BP. The physiognomy of the vegetation did not suffer very much from the hydrological changes suggested by oxygen isotopes, recording small percentage changes of AP from 4500 to ca 900 cal yr BP. However, since ca. 900 cal yr BP human impact became apparent with significant decrease in AP% and in total pollen concentration. Despite being quite homogeneous, the well preserved ostracod assemblage records both the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age.

lacustrine record, Holocene, pollen, ostracods, isotopes, tephras, Adriatic sea, Balkans