500,000 Years of Environmental History in Eastern Anatolia: The PALEOVAN Drilling Project
[摘要] International Continental Scientific Drilling Program(ICDP) drilled a complete succession of the lacustrine sedimentsequence deposited during the last ~500,000 years inLake Van, Eastern Anatolia (Turkey). Based on a detailedseismic site survey, two sites at a water depth of up to 360 mwere drilled in summer 2010, and cores were retrieved fromsub-lake-floor depths of 140 m (Northern Basin) and 220 m(Ahlat Ridge). To obtain a complete sedimentary section, thetwo sites were multiple-cored in order to investigate the paleoclimatehistory of a sensitive semi-arid region between theBlack, Caspian, and Mediterranean seas. Further scientificgoals of the PALEOVAN project are the reconstruction ofearthquake activity, as well as the temporal, spatial, andcompositional evolution of volcanism as reflected in the depositionof tephra layers. The sediments host organic matterfrom different sources and hence composition, which will beunravelled using biomarkers. Pathways for migration of continentaland mantle-derived noble gases will be analyzed inpore waters. Preliminary 40Ar/39Ar single crystal dating oftephra layers and pollen analyses suggest that the AhlatRidge record encompasses more than half a million years ofpaleoclimate and volcanic/geodynamic history, providing the longest continental record in the entire Near East todate.
doi:
10.2204/iodp.sd.14.02.2012
