The late Pliocene pollen record of ODP Site 108-658 off Cape Blanc, Atlantic Ocean

A 200 m long marine pollen record from ODP Site 658 (21°N, 19°W) reveals cyclic fluctuations in vegetation and continental climate in northwestern Africa from 3.7 to 1.7 Ma. These cycles parallel oxygen isotope stages. Prior to 3.5 Ma, the distribution of tropical forests and mangrove swamps reached Cape Blanc, 5°N of the present distribution. Between 3.5 and 2.6 Ma, forests occurred at this latitude during irregular intervals and nearly disappeared afterwards. Likewise, a Saharan paleoriver flowed continuously until isotope Stage 134 (3.35 Ma). When river discharge ceased, wind transport of pollen grains prevailed over fluvial transport. Pollen indicators of trade winds gradually increased between 3.3 and 2.5 Ma. A strong aridification of the climate of northwestern Africa occurred during isotope Stage 130 (3.26 Ma). Afterwards, humid conditions reestablised followed by another aridification around 2.7 Ma. Repetitive latitudinal shifts of vegetation zones ranging from wooded savanna to desert flora dominated for the first time between between 2.6 and 2.4 Ma as a response to the glacial stages 104, 100 and 98. Although climatic conditions, recorded in the Pliocene, were not as dry as those of the middle and Late Pleistocene, latitudinal vegetation shifts near the end of the Pliocene resembled those of the interglacial-glacial cycles of the Brunhes chron.

Pollen distribution of sediment core MD96-2048 from the Western Indian Ocean

Glacial-interglacial fluctuations in the vegetation of South Africa might elucidate the climate system at the edge of the tropics between the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. However, vegetation records covering a full glacial cycle have only been published from the eastern South Atlantic. We present a pollen record of the marine core MD96-2048 retrieved by the Marion Dufresne from the Indian Ocean ~120 km south of the Limpopo River mouth. The sedimentation at the site is slow and continuous. The upper 6 m (spanning the past 342 Ka) have been analysed for pollen and spores at millennial resolution. The terrestrial pollen assemblages indicate that during interglacials, the vegetation of eastern South Africa and southern Mozambique largely consisted of evergreen and deciduous forests. During glacials open mountainous scrubland dominated. Montane forest with Podocarpus extended during humid periods was favoured by strong local insolation. Correlation with the sea surface temperature record of the same core indicates that the extension of mountainous scrubland primarily depends on sea surface temperatures of the Agulhas Current. Our record corroborates terrestrial evidence of the extension of open mountainous scrubland (including fynbos-like species of the high-altitude Grassland biome) for the last glacial as well as for other glacial periods of the past 300 Ka.

Pollen record of sediment core GeoB1008-3 from the Congo fan

Palynological investigation of the marine core, GeoB1008-3, from near the mouth of the Congo river (6°35.6'S/10°19.1'E), provides information about the changes in vegetation and climate in West Equatorial Africa during the last 190 ka. The pollen diagram is divided into zones 1-6 which are considered to correspond in time with the marine isotope stages 1-6. Oscillations in temperature and moisture are indicated during the cold stage 6. During stage 5, two cooler periods (5d and 5b) can be shown with an expansion of Podocarpus forests to lower elevations on the expense of lowland rain forest. Extended mangrove swamps existed along the coast in times of high sea level (stages 5 and 1).