A 7000-year history of coastal environmental changes from Mexico’s Pacific coast: A multi-proxy record from Laguna Mitla, Guerrero

Abstract

The lack of multi-millennial multi-proxy paleoenvironmental reconstructions from Mexico’s Pacific coast has limited our understanding of the regional response to climate change and sea-level rise. A 479-cm core covering the last 6900 years was extracted from Laguna Mitla in the state of Guerrero on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Beginning as a Rhizophora-dominated salt pan ~6900 yr BP, at ~6500 yr BP, the site transitioned to a mangrove swamp dominated by Laguncularia, which lasted about 300 years. The beach barrier formed from ~6200 to 5200 yr BP, during which time, the site existed as an intermittently sheltered bay, the result of large, rapid changes in wave energy associated with the shifting barrier location and changes in stability. After the beach barrier was stabilized at ~5200 yr BP, water level at the coring site became a function of precipitation rather than sea level. Since that time, deposition has alternated between peat, laid down in a mangrove swamp, and clay intervals characterized by high concentrations of titanium and a predominantly regional pollen signal, representing open-water lagoon phases. Seven periods of increased water level, varying in duration, occurred during the backbarrier period, with El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) likely the main climatic mechanism causing these periodic shifts in the paleo-precipitation levels. We suggest that the deepest water levels detected over the last ~3200 years correlate with periods of increased ENSO activity. The spatial distribution of tropical cyclone rainfall, which represents a significant percentage of total annual precipitation along Mexico’s Pacific coast, may explain the inconsistencies between our record and paleoclimatic records from Mexico’s interior, but more work is needed to test this hypothesis.