Revisiting the loess/palaeosol sequence in Paks, Hungary: A post-IR IRSL based chronology for the ‘Young Loess Series’

Abstract

In Hungary, many loess/palaeosol sequences have been found to be discontinuous. In order to allow for correlations with other Quaternary records, reliable chronologies are needed. We therefore apply post-IR infrared (IR) stimulated luminescence (post-IR IRSL; pIRIR 290 ) dating to the uppermost 20 m of the loess sequence at Paks. The pIRIR 290 ages are compared with blue quartz OSL ages to test for potential age overestimation due to poor signal re-setting, and the observed good agreement is taken to imply that the more difficult to bleach pIRIR 290 signal was reset prior to deposition. Our pIRIR 290 based chronology reveals that most of the Late Pleistocene loess was deposited during marine isotope stage (MIS) 3 and during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). This is in disagreement with formerly published ages. The discrepancy can most likely be explained by anomalous fading (resulting in an age underestimate); this conclusion is supported by our uncorrected 'standard' IRSL ages. We further confirm that the Basaharc Double soil complex can be correlated with MIS 7; the underlying loess and soils cannot be dated accurately because the pIRIR 290 signal approaches saturation. Keywords: Late Pleistocene; Middle Pleistocene; loess; OSL; post-IR IRSL; Hungary M A N U S C R I P T A C C E P T E DACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 2 IntroductionThe importance of loess/palaeosol sequences to the reconstruction of the landscape evolution and the palaeoenviroment in the Carpathian Basin has been pointed out by several studies (e.g. Bronger, 1975Bronger, , 2003 Pécsi and Richter, 1996). In regions thought to be dominated by continuous loess deposits such as the Chinese loess plateau (e.g. Kukla, 1987) and the southeast Carpathian Basin (Vojvodina region; e.g. Marković et al., 2008Marković et al., , 2011 Fitzsimmons et al., 2012) to marine isotope stage (MIS) 13, the BA soil to MIS 11, and the BD soil complex to MIS 9 and 7. The first 'absolute' ages of the MB soil were presented by Borsy et al. (1979). At Mende ( Fig. 1), they dated the loess above the MB soil to 105 ± 17 ka using thermoluminescence (TL). In Paks (Fig. 1), the loess underlying this soil was dated to 125 ± 20 ka; they concluded that the MB soil represents the last interglacial. In contrast, Wintle and Packman (1988) argued, based on their TL data for the loess underlying the Mende Upper soil (Mende felsı; MF, also subdivided into MF 1 and MF 2 ), that the MB cannot be correlated with the last interglacial, but has to be much older. Singhvi et al. (1989) claimed that the BD 2 soil (therein called F 3 after Bronger (1975)) corresponds to the last interglacial. Several studies (Zöller et al., 1994; Oches and McCoy, 1995;Frechen et al., 1997; Novothny et al., 2002) have now identified the MF 2 as the last interglacial palaeosol, thus placing the BD 1 -BD 2 soil complex, the BA and the MB soil all in the Middle Pleistocene. Zöller et al. (1994) presented TL ages of 133 ± 15 ka (between BD 1 and BD 2 ) and 135 ± 12 ka (below BD 2 ) for the sequence in Basaharc (Fig. 1...

Danube loess stratigraphy — Towards a pan-European loess stratigraphic model

“…39 ka) to investigating the variability of sedimentation rates from MIS 3 to the present, and indicate substantial loess accumulation during the last glacial maximum period on the order of 6-8 m within several thousand years . Thiel et al (2014) confirmed previous stratigraphic expectations related to the loess wall in the Paks brickyard, Hungary (Sartori et al, 1999;Horváth, 2001;Marković et al, 2009b;, 2012a (Figure 10). This demonstrates that the loess-palaeosol sequences at Paks are not a continuous record.…”

“…This technique, partially developed on European loess, extends the dating range beyond that of quartz, potentially to up to 300 ka (Thiel et al, 2011;Buylaert et al, 2012). This protocol has been successfully applied to a number of Austrian, Hungarian, Croatian, Serbian and Romanian sites, and confirm or extend existing chronostratigraphic models (Schmidt et al, 2010;Thiel et al, 2011Thiel et al, , 2014;…”

“…This approach is generally constrained to the last glacial cycle as reliable quartz OSL ages are limited to last glacial loess (Timar-Gabor and Wintle, 2013) and age estimations of older loess and palaeosol units decrease in reliability as the post-IRIRSL 290 signal approaches saturation towards ~300 ka (Murray et al, 2014;Thiel et al, 2014). Nevertheless, a number of useful estimates of sedimentation rates have been determined by using luminescence dating from sites in Serbia (Stevens et al, 2011), Hungary (Újvári et al, 2010;Novothny et al, 2011;Schatz et al, 2012;Thiel et al, 2014) and Romania (Timar et al, 2010;Vasiliniuc et al, 2010;Constantin et al, 2014;Fitzsimmons and Hambach, 2014). At the site of Urluia in southeastern Romania, substantial deposits of the Campanian Ignimbrite volcanic tephra provide a useful upper age limit (ca.…”

The Danube Corridor Hypothesis and the Carpathian Basin: Geological, Environmental and Archaeological Approaches to Characterizing Aurignacian Dynamics

“…Still, it is likely that there was significant paleodiversity across the Carpathian Basin, as indicated by diverse loess paleosols suggesting cool-temperate biomes, Frechen et al (1997), Oches and McCoy (1995), Pécsi (1979), Thiel et al (2014), Wintle and Packman (1988) Schatz et al (2011Schatz et al ( , 2012Schatz et al ( , 2014, (2015), Sümegi et al (2007), Sümegi andHertelendi (1998) varying between steppe grasslands (Schatz et al 2011) and forest steppe (Feurdean et al 2014;Kels et al 2014), and their associated ecotones. It is evident that these variations are in part due to complex geographical, geological, climatic and meteorological deviations across both space and time.…”

Analysis of recent surface development on the high bluff between Paks and Dunakömlőd

“…За поглядом Пейчі (1986) [25], в Угорщині нема лесу, старшого за 1 млн р, а вік молодих лесів лише 110-130 тис р. На основі нових наукових даних, отри-маних впродовж останніх двох десятиліть, можна стве-рджувати, що леси та палеогрунти Угорщини набагато давніші, ніж вважалося раніше. Грунт MB, що позначає нижню межу молодих лесів, має вік 400 тис р, а утво-рення молодої лесової серії розпочалося перед MIS 9 [28,12,33]. Під час гляціальних фазах в результаті ео-лових процесів формувалася лесова рівнина у західній частині Альфельда (Мезефельд).…”