Palaeohydrological changes as reflected by lake-level fluctuations in the Swiss Plateau, the Jura Mountains and the northern French Pre-Alps during the Last Glacial–Holocene transition: a regional synthesis

Abstract

This paper presents Lateglacial and early Holocene lake-level fluctuations reconstructed from a sedimentary approach of cores from Gerzensee and Horgen-Scheller, Zürichsee, in the Swiss Plateau, and Sevrier, Lake Annecy, in the northern French Pre-Alps. Then, these data are integrated with lake-level records previously established at Montilier, Lake Morat (Swiss Plateau) and Le Locle (Jura) to build a first tentative stratigraphy of palaeohydrological events for the period 15–11 ka cal. BP in the Swiss Plateau, the Jura Mountains and the northern French Pre-Alps. Correlations between the lake-level records are based on AMS radiocarbon dates, pollen and isotope stratigraphy and tephrochronology (Laacher See Tephra). Then, this regional palaeohydrological event stratigraphy is compared with the GRIP oxygen-isotope record and the event stratigraphy scheme based on this record. The phases Greenland Interstadial (GI) 1e, GI-1c, GI-1a, the middle GS-1, the Greenland Stadial (GS) 1–Preboreal transition and the period following the Preboreal oscillation (PBO) coincide with low lake-level conditions. However, phases GI-1d, GI-1b, the early and late GS-1 and the PBO correspond to higher lake-levels. These correlations highlight the palaeohydrological significance of the climatic events associated with the Last Glacial–Holocene transition in the European mid-latitudes.