Late Holocene palaeoclimate variability: The significance of bog pine dendrochronology related to peat stratigraphy. The Puścizna Wielka raised bog case study (Orawa – Nowy Targ Basin, Polish Inner Carpathians)

Abstract

Abstract The results of dendrochronological and palynological analyses of subfossil pine trees occurring in the peat deposits of the Puścizna Wielka raised bog (Polish Carpathians, Southern Poland) – the only site with numerous subfossil pine trees in the mountainous regions of Central Europe presently known – indicate that the majority of the tree populations grew in the peat bog during the periods ca 5415–3940 cal BP and 3050–2560 cal BP. Several forestless episodes, dated to 5245–5155 cal BP, 4525–4395 cal BP and 3940–3050 cal BP, were preceded by tree dying-off phases caused by an extreme periodical increase in humidity and general climate cooling trends. These events are documented based on analyses of pollen and non-pollen palynomorph assemblages, dendrochronological analyses of the trees, as well as numerous radiocarbon datings of the sediment horizons occurring within the peat bog profile. The phases of germinations, and, in turn, of tree and shrub invasions of the peat bog areas have been closely connected to drying and occasional warming of the regional climate. The last of the forestless periods began about 2600 years ago and continued up to the very recent times. Currently, as a result of desiccation of the peat bog and the lowering of the groundwater level (due to improved water drainage system), pine trees have returned the peat bog again. These results demonstrate that studies of subfossil bog-pine trees are quite effective in documenting and reconstructing periods of humidity fluctuation that occurred within the Carpathian region over the last several millennia.