Late Glacial and Holocene paleoenvironmental records in the Tatra Mountains, East-Central Europe, based on lake, peat bog and colluvial sedimentary data: A summary review

Abstract

The Tatra Mountains are the highest massif in the Carpathian mountain arc (2655 m) and represent a typical alpine landscape developed in the course of Pleistocene glaciations, but are not glacierized today. The glacial relief of the massif offers an abundance of topographic depressions (cirque overdeepenings, morainic closed depressions) where sedimentary sequences may potentially reveal paleoenvironmental changes that may have occurred since the glaciers' retreat from the Last Glacial Maximum position (∼26–18 ka). We present a review of Late Glacial and Holocene sedimentary archives from the Tatra Mountains collected in the Polish and non-Polish literature. The data sets (40 sites) included 21 lake, 13 peat bog, and 6 colluvial sediment sites. The entire listed sediment sequence features radiometric datings or at the very least a chronological framework is inferred from the biostratigraphy. The oldest sampled sedimentary sequences were dated back to the Oldest Dryas and were obtained from the deepest glacial lakes located in the subalpine zone (up to 1700 m). Shallow lakes (<10 m) and morainic closed depressions do not reveal sediments older than the Holocene. This can be linked with dry climate conditions and unfavorable hydrologic regimes during the Late Glacial when the studied depressions remained dry over the long term following deglaciation, irrespective of elevation and position in the glaciated valley system. For the Holocene, several millennial-scale phases of climate humidity and increased debris flow activity were identified. The intensification of debris flows is indicated at 9–7.5 ka and during the mid- to late Holocene (at ca. 6 ka, 3.5 ka, 2 ka, after 300 AD, 800–1000 AD, and LIA), separated by relatively stable climate conditions during the 'Holocene thermal optimum' (7.5–6 ka). The LIA in the Tatra Mountains was a relatively long (1220–1925 AD) and climatically unstable period, with a cold and dry first phase (1220–1540 AD), followed by a cold and humid phase (1540–1925 AD). During the modern warm period, renewed intensification of extreme slope processes has been recorded after 1970 AD.