Late Pliocene and Quaternary Eurasian locust infestations in the Canary Archipelago

[EN] The Canary Archipelago has long been a sensitive location to record climate changes of the past. Interbedded with its basalt lavas are marine deposits from the principal Pleistocene interglacials, as well as aeolian sands with intercalated palaeosols. The palaeosols contain African dust and innumerable relict egg pods of a temperate-region locust (cf. Dociostaurus maroccanus Thunberg 1815). New ecological and stratigraphical information reveals the geological history of locust plagues (or infestations) and their palaeoclimatic significance.

The Acridian plagues, a new Holocene and Pleistocene palaeoclimatic indicator

[EN] Five palaeosols, intercalated within the Quaternary dune beds of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote (Canary Islands), off the Moroccan coast, mark wetter climatic episodes. In all of them, billions of calcified insect ootheca testify to past occurrences of Acridian plagues, such as those reaching the western Sahara following heavy rainfall events over the Sahel.