Though the stratigraphical and palaeogeographical framework of the Quaternary in Poland is still to be completed, several crucial points have been confirmed recently. The preglacial series, accepted for years as belonging to the Lower Pleistocene, is undoubtedly of Early Pliocene age, with a huge hiatus above almost until the uppermost Lower Pleistocene. The earliest glaciation in Poland (Nidanian) occurred at about 900 ka BP when the ice sheet reached the mid-southern part of the country. The following Podlasian Interglacial embraced the Brunhes/Matuyama boundary in the middle, in a similar fashion to the corresponding Cromerian Complex in Western Europe. The late Early and early Middle Pleistocene interglacials in Poland comprised 2–3 optima each, whereas every one of the younger interglacials was characterised by a single optimum only. The Late Vistulian ice sheet was most extensive in the western part of Poland (Leszno Phase) whereas the younger Poznań Phase was more extensive in the central and eastern part of the country. This was due to the varied distance from the glaciation center in Scandinavia, making the ice sheet margin reach a terminal position in different times. Palaeoclimatological research in the Tatra Mountains has provided new evidence for the atmospheric circulation over Europe. During cold phases of the Pleistocene in Poland a continental climate extended further westwards, quite the opposite that occurring during warmer intervals.

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ABSTRACT. The vegetation of the Eemian interglacial and Early Vistulian glaciation was reconstructed on the basis of pollen analysis, biogenic and mineral-biogenic sediments from the Żabieniec Południowy locality. It was revealed that the present-day fossil reservoir was formerly a lake existing continuously from the decline of the Warta stadial (LG MPG) to the end of the Early Vistulian (EV4). The upper Plenivistulian age of top sediments, previously accepted on the basis of the radiocarbon date 24 200 ± 350 yrs BP (uncalibrated), was not confirmed by pollen analysis. In the pollen record from the nearby Żabieniec mire a break in biogenic accumulation corresponding to the Lower and Middle Plenivistulian was discovered. In view of the character of Plenivistulian morphogenesis in that area it appears that the deposits of both basins illustrate the development of one large melt-out depression during the whole postglacial period.

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, J. 2018 (January): Holocene lake sediments from the Faiyum Oasis in Egypt: a record of environmental and climate change. Boreas, Vol. 47,.1111/bor.12251. ISSN 0300-9483.The Qarun Lake in the Faiyum Oasis (Egypt) provides a unique record of Holocene environmental and climate change in an arid area largely devoid of fossil proxy records. Multiple lithological, palaeontological and geochemical proxies and 32 radiocarbon dates from the 26-m-long core FA-1 provide a time series of the lake's transformation. Our results confirm that a permanent lake appeared in the Holocene at c. 10 cal. ka BP. The finely laminated lake sediments consist of diatomite, in which diatoms and ostracods together with lower concentrations of ions indicate a freshwater environment at the end of the early and middle Holocene. This freshwater supply was closely associated with regular inflows of the Nile water during flood seasons, when the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) migrated northwards in Africa, although it has probably never reached the Faiyum Oasis. Local rainfall, possibly connected with a northern atmospheric circulation, may have been important during winter. Several phases in the lake's evolution are recognized, represented by oscillations between deep open freshwater conditions during more humid climate and shallow fresh to brackish water during drier episodes. After a long freshwater phase, the lake setting has become more brackish since c. 6.2 cal. ka BP as indicated by diatoms and increasing contents of evaporite ions in the sediment. This clearly shows that since that time the lake has occasionally become partly desiccated. This is a result of reduced discharge of the Nile. In the late Holocene the lake was mostly brackish and then gradually turned into a saline lake. This natural process was interrupted about 2.3 cal. ka BP when a man-made canal facilitated water inflow from the Nile. The examined FA-1 core can be used as a reference age model of climate change in the Holocene and its impact on the development and decline of ancient civilizations in northeastern Africa. Leszek Marks

The Lake Qarun (Faiyum Oasis, northern Egypt) is a relic of the much larger Holocene lake. Past lake levels and extensions were reconstructed, based on setting of archaeological sites scattered along northern paleoshores of the ancient lake. However, geoarcheological works did not yield enough data to establish continuous environmental history of the lake. A deep drilling FA-1 on the southeastern shore of the lake, performed in 2014, supplied with a core, 26 m long that is the one of the longest lake sediment cores in northeastern Africa. The basal section of the core consisted of thin-laminated diatom marly deposits, underlain at the Late Pleistocene/Holocene boundary by coarse-grained sands. The sediment lamine were quite well developed, especially in the lower part of the core. Preliminary results indicated annually deposited sediment sequence with seasonality signals provided by microlamine of diatoms, calcite, organic matter and clastic material. Early Holocene varved sediments from the Faiyum Oasis supplied with exceptional paleoenvironmental data for northeastern Africa, which enriched a record from previous logs drilled at the southwestern margin of the Qarun Lake.