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Holocene palaeoenvironmental changes in three lagoons on the Algarve coast of Portugal

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Abstract

Three sediment cores from neighbouring estuaries along the Portuguese Algarve coast were analysed for the comparison of grain-size distribution, geochemical composition and microfossil associations. The goal of this study is to reconstruct the environmental evolution of the estuaries. Our reconstructions based on foraminifera and ostracods reveal several distinct chronological stages, including the initial situation of the palaeo-valleys, the ingression of the sea into the river mouths at about ~7500-8000 cal BP in the Quarteira and São Lourenço estuaries and ~8000 cal BP in the Carcavai estuary, and the silting-up following the sea-level high stand after ~6500 cal BP until the present.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG; MA 1308/09). We thank Dr. Heike Schneider and Dana Höfer for supporting analyses and discussions, Dr. Gerhard Daut for access to the facilities of the laboratory of the Department of Physical Geography and the technicians of the sedimentological laboratory (Brunhilde Dreßler, Kati Hartwig) for analysing the geochemical parameters, PD Dr. Jussi Baade for measuring the exact positions of the core, Laura Pereira and Dr. Sarita Camacho for supporting identification of the microfauna and numerous students of the University of Jena for help during field work. The authors thank Dr. Simon Connor for the language corrections and the referees Prof. Alan Lord and Prof. Maria Cristina Cabral for their detailed and constructive reviews. This work is a contribution to IGCP Project 4959.

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  1. Institute of Geography, Department of Physical Geography, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Löbdergraben 32, 07743, Jena, Germany

    Carmen Trog, Rita Hempel & Roland Mäusbacher

  2. Institute of Earth Sciences, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Burgweg 11, 07749, Jena, Germany

    Peter Frenzel

  3. Senckenberg Museum für Naturkunde Görlitz, Am Museum 1, 02826, Görlitz, Germany

    Carmen Trog

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  1. Carmen Trog
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Trog, C., Hempel, R., Frenzel, P. et al. Holocene palaeoenvironmental changes in three lagoons on the Algarve coast of Portugal. Palaeobio Palaeoenv 95, 203–221 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12549-015-0185-0

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