Speleothem records of climate variability from OIS 5 to the late Holocene from the Croatian littoral (Manita peć Cave)

Littoral part of Croatia, recognized as transitional climatic zone between the continental Europe and Mediterranean, hosts thousands of caves, but speleothem-based palaeoclimate and palaeoenvironmental studies are still scarce. We present the study conducted in Manita peć Cave (44°18' N, 15°28' E, 570 m a.s.l.) formed in Upper Jurassic limestone of Velebit Mt. Study has encompassed characterization of microclimate settings, dripwater hydrology and environmental conditions for modern calcite precipitation. For the palaeoclimate interpretation, two stalagmites (MP2 and MP3) were recovered and their O and C stable isotope time series were constrained by U-Th dating method. Regional response to the global climate changes was revealed for the periods between ~106 ka and ~46 ka and from ~13 ka to ~5 ka. The most prominent changes that had led to growth interruption of MP2 and significant change in deposition of MP3 were preceded by considerable δ13C increase from 7‰ to 0‰ (VPDB) in both speleothems, indicating deterioration of climatic conditions. Interestingly, δ13C of modern calcite from this cave is ca. -11‰ implying the presence of vegetation and soil microbial activity, although the present plant cover is quite deprived. In order to asses potential causes of climate signals and dominant influences regarding continental and maritime air masses, we compare our results with the records from the same time periods from Villars Cave, France (Genty et al., 2010), Sofular Cave, Turkey (Fleitmann et al., 2009), from Soreq and Peqiin Cave (Bar-Mathews et al., 2003) and from north Alpine caves (Boch et al., 2011). References: Bar-Matthews, M., Ayalon, A., Gilmour, M., Matthews, A., Hawkesworth, C.J. (2003) Sea-land oxygen isotopic relationships from planktonic foraminifera and speleothems in the Eastern Mediterranean region and their implication for paleorainfall during interglacial intervals, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, 67, 17, 3181- 3199. Boch, R., Cheng, H., Spötl, C., Edwards, R. L., Wang, X., Häuselmann, Ph. (2011) NALPS: a precisely dated European climate record 120–60 ka, Clim. Past, 7, 1247-1259. Fleitmann, D., Cheng, H., Badertscher, S., Edwards, R.L., Mudelsee, M., Gokturk, O.M., Fankhauser, A., Pickering, R., Raible, C.C., Matter, A., Kramers, J, Tuysuz, O. (2009) Timing and climatic imprint of Greenland interstadials recorded in stalagmites from Northern Turkey. Geophysical Research Letters, 36. L19707. Genty, D., Combourieu-Nebout, N., Peyron, O., Blamart, D., Wainer, K., Mansuri, F., Ghaleb, B., Isabello, L., Dormoy, I., von Grafenstein, U., Bonelli, S., Landais, A., Brauer, A. (2010) Isotopic characterization of rapid climatic events during OIS3 and OIS4 in Villars Cave stalagmites (SW-France) and correlation with Atlantic and Mediterranean pollen records. Quaternary Science Reviews, Vol. 29, Issue 19, 2799-2820.