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Glacial and interglacials in the Neotropics: a 130,000-year diatom record from central Panama

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Abstract

The last interglacial was the most recent time when temperatures were 1–2 °C above modern, but little is known of this period in the lowland Neotropics. Equally, data for the full glacial period are very limited. A detailed analysis of the period between ~ 137 and 100 ka was completed to provide a paleoecological history of the last interglacial in central Panama. Two additional fossil diatom records from the same depositional basin provided records of the glacial period. Diatom assemblages were compared across all cores and the dominant species of both glacial and interglacial periods was almost always Aulacoseira granulata. Other species, e.g. Aulacoseira agassizii, Achnanthidium minutissimum, Nitzschia amphibia, and Navicula radiosa, had distinctive patterns of abundance within the record, indicating a shallowing of the lake in the last millennia of MIS5e. The period between 119 and 108 ka witnessed the most change within the high-resolution portion of the record suggesting an increased lake level, with expanding lake margins. Other sediment cores collected within the caldera revealed the continued presence of a lake at El Valle through much of the glacial period, with shallowing evident at the time of the LGM. The changes in diatom assemblages at El Valle provide one of the oldest precipitation records from Central America tracking mean ITCZ position between the last interglacial and glacial periods. Furthermore, the evidence for both a wet interglacial and glacial period support palynological findings that the humid environments of Central Panama were not interrupted by glacial aridity.

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Acknowledgements

Drilling of the 2008 El Valle core was made possible through a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF-0902864). We thank all those involved in the drilling process of the EV08 core including Richard Wharry, Diana Ochoa, Andrés Gómez and Javier Luque. We thank Carlos Jaramillo for his help in transporting the core. William Gosling, Louise Thomas, and Peter van Calsteren of the Open University, U.K. are thanked for their assistance in providing the initial U/Th age. We would also like to thank the reviewers for their helpful insights into the composition of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Florida Institute of Technology, 150 West University Boulevard, Melbourne, FL, 32901, USA

    C. R. Shadik, G. M. Cárdenes-Sandí, A. Correa-Metrio & M. B. Bush

  2. Escuela Centroamericana de Geología, University of Costa Rica, San José, Costa Rica

    G. M. Cárdenes-Sandí

  3. Instituto de Geología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510, Mexico City, DF, Mexico

    A. Correa-Metrio

  4. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    R. L. Edwards & A. Min

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  1. C. R. Shadik
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Correspondence to C. R. Shadik.

Electronic supplementary material

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10933_2017_6_MOESM1_ESM.jpg

ESM1: Most common diatom species in core EV08 from El Valle, Panama. Scale bar is equal to 10 μm a) Ulnaria acus (Kützing) Aboal b)Ulnaria ulna (Nitzsch) Compére c) Aulacoseira agassizii Ostenfeld d) Cyclotella meneghiniana Kützing e) Navicula radiosa Kützing f) Nitzschia amphibia Grunow g) Achnanthidium minutissimum (Kützing) Czarnecki h) Aulacoseira granulata (Ehrenberg) Simonsen (JPEG 899 kb)

ESM2: 234U/230Th dating information for the EV08 core (PDF 281 kb)

10933_2017_6_MOESM3_ESM.jpg

ESM3: EV08 Quercus record against the EV88 Quercus record. a) EV08 Quercus curve against depth. The 234U/230Th date for this core is indicated by (*). Quercus absence is indicated by the red section with the new chronology date indicated with and arrow. b) EV88 Quercus curve against depth. The 234U/230Th dates for this core is indicated by (*). Quercus absence is indicated by the red section. Quercus presence from extended counts are indicated by (+). (JPEG 388 kb)

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Shadik, C.R., Cárdenes-Sandí, G.M., Correa-Metrio, A. et al. Glacial and interglacials in the Neotropics: a 130,000-year diatom record from central Panama. J Paleolimnol 58, 497–510 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-017-0006-8

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