Mailaender Family Collection 1962

Newspaper clippings realting to the 100th anniversary of Mailaender brewery "Bergbraeu" (1862-1962) in Fuerth, Bavaria.

Jacob Wiener collection 1897-1988

Manuscripts and articles by Rabbi Dr. Jacob G. Wiener about Jewish communities in Germany.

AMS radiocarbon dates and pollen analysis from Zugspitzplatt

On the strongly karstified and almost unvegetated surface of the Zugspitzplatt, at an altitude of about 2290 m in the Wettersteingebirge, there is a doline within which over a period of several thousand years a bed of fine loess-like sediment, almost 1m thick, has accumulated. Notwithstanding the situation of this locality far above the present tree-line, this infill contains quantities of pollen and spores sufficient for pollen analysis without use of any enrichment techniques. Despite poor pollen preservation, it was possible to date the basal layers of this profile on the basis of their pollen assemblages. AMS dating (7415 ± 30 BP) has confirmed that the oldest sediments were laid down during the early Atlantic period, the time of the thermal optimum of the Holocene. At least since that time this site has never been overridden by a glacier. The moraine associated with the Löbben Oscillation between 3400 and 3100 BP - here represented by the so-called Platt Stillstand (Plattstand) - did not quite reach the doline. A diagram shows known Holocene glacial limits. The composition of the pollen assemblages from the two oldest levels with high pollen concentrations strongly suggests that the distance between the doline and the forest was much less during the Atlantic than at present.

Occurence of flood laminae in sediments of Ammersee

A 450 year spring-summer flood layer time series at seasonal resolution has been established from the varved sediment record of Lake Ammersee (southern Germany), applying a novel methodological approach. The main results are (1) the attainment of a precise chronology by microscopic varve counting, (2) the identification of detrital layers representing flood-triggered fluxes of catchment material into the lake, and (3) the recognition of the seasonality of these flood layers from their microstratigraphic position within a varve. Tracing flood layers in a proximal and a distal core and correlating them by application of the precise chronology provided information on the depositional processes. Comparing the seasonal flood layer record with daily runoff data of the inflowing River Ammer for the period from 1926 to 1999 allowed the definition of an approximate threshold in flood magnitude above which the formation of flood layers becomes very likely. Moreover, it was possible for the first time to estimate the "completeness" of the flood layer time series and to recognize that mainly floods in spring and summer, representing the main flood seasons in this region, are well preserved in the sediment archive. Their frequency distribution over the entire 450 year time series is not stationary but reveals maxima for colder periods of the Little Ice Age when solar activity was reduced. The observed spring-summer flood layer frequency further shows trends similar to those of the occurrence of flood-prone weather regimes since A.D. 1881, probably suggesting a causal link between solar variability and changes in midlatitude atmospheric circulation patterns.