Three climatic cycles recorded in a loess-palaeosol sequence at Semlac (Romania) – implications for dust accumulation in the Carpathian Basin and the northern Hemisphere

Abstract

Semlac is regarded as a key section for the Carpathian Basin because of the good preservation of the fine silt. The site is situated at the Mureş River in its lower reaches (Banat region, western Romanian). The more than 10 m thick loess sequence includes four fossil sol-complexes developed in homogenous relatively fine silty loess and dates back to marine isotope stage (MIS) 10. This setting offers possibilities to a) improve the understanding of the type and composition of the lowland loess sequences in the Carpathian Basin for the last interglacial palaeosol complex and beyond, b) reconstruct the temporal evolution of the local loess-palaeosol successions and c) compare the loess of the region to loess-sequences in adjacent areas (Carpathian Basin, Lower Danube) and to dust proxy data in the northern hemisphere. A strikingly sinusoidal course of physical property data in depth and time point to relatively homogenous, quasi-continuous background sedimentation of dust, which are interpreted as resulting from long-range transport. This is in contrast to a commonly observed more glacial-interglacial pattern with sharp boundaries of paleosols