North Atlantic influences on climate conditions in East-Central Europe in the late Holocene reflected by flowstone compositions

Abstract

A stalagmitic flowstone deposit from the Béke Cave (called Nagy-tufa deposit), East-Central Europe is characterized by complex, climate related textural and geochemical records as documented from a drill core (BNT-2 core) covering the period of 4 to 1 ka cal BP. The core location was monitored in an earlier study. Based on monitoring, textural and chemical relationships, it has been hypothesized that the stable carbon isotope signal of the flowstone deposit is a regional humidity record, indicating wet periods 3.8 to 3.4, 3.0 to 2.8 and 2.0 to 1.6 ka cal BP, and a prominent dry period between 2.1 and 2.7 ka cal BP. Furthermore, stable H isotope data of inclusion-hosted water were used to reconstruct the atmospheric temperatures that fit independent regional paleotemperature records, indicating warm conditions around 2.7 ka BP and a relatively cold period between 2.5 and 1.5 ka BP. Comparisons with regional speleothem records and reconstructed North Atlantic Oscillation data indicate that the Late Holocene paleohumidity changes recorded by the BNT-2 stable carbon isotope record can be detected in the entire Western-Central European region with further links to the North Atlantic realm.