Quantification of Calabrian vegetation in Southern Primory'e (Far East of Russia) using multiple proxies

Abstract

Early Pleistocene vegetation dynamics in the Russian Far East (southern Primory'e) are studied using multiple quantitative techniques on various palaeobotanical organ types. Vegetation data for this time interval were obtained from a total of 8 macrofloras (fruits and seeds, woods, and leaves) and 18 microfloras collected from a 10m thick, terrigenous succession exposed in the Pavlovskoe brown coal field. According to magnetostratigraphy, the studied section covers the last 250kyr of the Calabrian (1.0 to 0.781Ma) and includes the early/middle Pleistocene boundary. In this first integrative study on quantification of palaeovegetation of the Russian Far East, we apply the following methods: Plant Functional Type (PFT) Approach, Integrated Plant Record (IPR) vegetation analysis, and ecological Coexistence Approach (CAeco) on the different organs, partly originating from the same layer.The investigation documents the following outcomes: 1) Vegetation types obtained from the various methods are proven to be largely consistent. All data indicate the presence of more forested conditions and show no xeric, open woodland throughout the section. 2) Vegetation as reconstructed using the various methods generally is in good agreement with the recently published climate evolution throughout the section. 3) There is a cyclic evolution of PFT diversity which is in line with climate data. 4) The changes of vegetation types obtained from IPR analysis relate to cooling/drying trends of the climate evolution.