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The cliff terrace site, Woodstock Rocks, was exploited occasionally by hominins from the Earlier Stone Age to the Iron Age. A small excavation uncovered an Acheulean quartzite workshop with many flakes, but lacking large cutting tools and without organic preservation. Below the workshop site, a ferricrete river terrace cements Acheulean lithics that include large cutting tools, giant flakes and heavy-duty scrapers. A palaeomagnetic study reveals reversed polarity, implying that the ferricrete formation likely took place during the Matuyama Chron and that the lithic assemblage is older than 780 000 years. The cliff face was painted expansively, but both the Bushman and Iron Age farmer art is faded. There are some rare images including a wild dog, a bird and a possible genet. The southern edge of the cliff terrace has Middle and Later Stone Age lithics on the surface and talus slope, as well as grindstones, and ceramics that include Bambata sherds from six vessels. The proximity to the Mokolo River and sources of rocks for knapping, as well as smooth rock walls for painting ensured repeated Woodstock Rocks visits (not necessarily occupation) for generations of Homo sapiens visitors, as well as earlier hominins. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Southern Cyprus is situated within a mosaic terrane that has been fragmented between the northward drifting African and Arabian plates and the Eurasian plate. Enormous uplift of the earth mantle in the Tróodos Mountains is explained by two models. The subduction model explains subduction along the Cyprean arc to be the driving force for uplift whereas after the restraining bend model westward squeezing of Cyprus along strike-slip faulting is responsible for the enormous uplift at restraining bends. Since its emergence as an island in early Miocene times, landscape formation on Cyprus has been strongly controlled by this uplift. Until the Plio-Pleistocene, a strait belt separated the southern unroofed ophiolitic core region-the Tróodos Mountains-from the folded Kyrenia range to the north. This former sea basin, nowadays the Mesaoría Basin, is linked with the Tróodos Mountains by a dissected glacis with a thick cover of river deposits. The highest and oldest river deposits (Apalós Formation) were studied in the Vlokkariá hill southwest of Lefkosía. The 45.5 m thick Apalós Formation of Early Pleistocene age exhibits 24 sedimentary units (Fluviatile Series). Their magnetostratigraphical characters align with the Matuyama chron including the Olduvai and Jaramillo subchrons thus comprising about 1.15 Ma within the Early Pleistocene. This fluvial stack indicates a very flat and deeply lying river environment flowing from a slowly uplifting Tróodos hinterland. It happened during the end of Early Pleistocene when the enhanced Tróodos uplift started the dissection of the stacked river plain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Calcium carbonate was preserved more than 1 km below the modern calcite compensation depth (CCD) at ODP Site 1179 over several short intervals around 2.5–2.4, 1.65 and 0.9–0.7 Ma. This anomalous preservation resulted from a combination of increased production of planktonic foraminiferal tests at the sea-surface and increased rate of sedimentation to the sea floor. The abundance of dinoflagellate cysts in calcareous sediments records intense plankton blooms, and the preservation of oxidation-susceptible round brown Brigantedinium cysts in foraminifer-rich samples supports the theory of rapid burial. The rise in sea-surface productivity was driven by enhanced flux of continentally derived limiting nutrients, consistent with the pollen evidence of continental aridification, cooling, and an increase in wind strength. The abundant pollen, dominated by steppe herb and montane–boreal conifer taxa, contrasts with lower pollen concentrations dominated by temperate-subtropical deciduous tree and Taxodium-type pollen in non-calcareous sediments. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Loess–palaeosol sequences from the western part of the East European loess province were palaeomagnetically studied. The position of the Matuyama–Brunhes boundary was found in the sequence at Zahvizdja (East Carpathian Foreland) overlying the surface that corresponds to the VI Dniestre terrace. This boundary is located within the accumulation horizon of an interglacial soil developed during the time equivalent of oxygen isotope stage 19. The lowermost palaeosol of this sequence, located just below the soil containing the Matuyama–Brunhes boundary record, can thus be correlated with oxygen isotope stage 21 and the VI Dniestre terrace was developed during oxygen isotope stage 22. Samples from the palaeosols (especially from their accumulation horizons) revealed the presence of secondary (postdepositional) components of magnetisation, some resistant to alternating field demagnetisation even as high as 100 mT. Fine-grained maghaemite is most probably the carrier of these components. Subsequent thermal demagnetisation can remove them, to establish the primary palaeodirections. Haematite and magnetite are the main carriers of remanent magnetisation of the loess layers. The degree of possible delay of remanence acquisition in loess sequences was assessed on sediments from three sections sampled in the Volhynia and Lublin uplands. Good correlation of directional changes recorded in coeval segments of loess sections shows that the characteristic magnetisation of aeolian deposits from the western part of the East European loess province is approximately syndepositional. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Piston core LC07, located west of the Sicily Strait in the Mediterranean Sea, unambiguously records the Matuyama/Brunhes (M/B) and the upper Jaramillo polarity reversals, with similar average sediment accumulation rates (SARs) for the Brunhes Chron (2.29 cm/kyr) and late Matuyama Chron C1r.1r (2.19 cm/kyr). We report a relative paleointensity record for the interval spanning the M/B boundary down into the Jaramillo Subchron, which is unique in the Mediterranean because existing records from this basin cover only the last 80 kyr. The average SAR in core LC07 is used to translate the depth-related paleointensity record to the time domain; the ratio of anhysteretic remanent magnetization to low-field magnetic susceptibility is climatically sensitive and is used to tune the age model. This correlation produces a good fit to the global ice volume model derived for summer insolation at 65°N. With this age model, a paleointensity minimum in association with the M/B boundary has a duration of about 4–5 kyr, while the directional change has a duration of <3 kyr. A second paleointensity minimum of similar duration is found about 16 kyr below the M/B boundary. This feature (precursor or ‘dip’ in the literature) has previously been recognized at the same time interval in many marine records, which reinforces the validity of our age model. Other relative paleointensity minima are found within chron C1r.1r, and, within the uncertainties of the respective age models, these minima coincide with those observed from the few published coeval paleointensity records. In particular, there is good correspondence between the ages of minima at about 0.92 and 0.89 Ma, which probably correlate with two geomagnetic excursions (Santa Rosa and Kamikatsura, respectively) that have been recorded in lava flows and dated using the 40Ar/39Ar technique. In contrast, a recently dated excursion at 0.83 Ma from La Palma seems to correspond to a paleointensity maximum. This observation is opposite to that expected and this excursion needs to be confirmed. In contrast to some recently published paleointensity records, spectral analysis of the LC07 record does not reveal identification of significant power at the orbital obliquity frequency. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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