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Middle-Holocene alluvial forests and associated fluvial environments: a multi-proxy reconstruction from the lower Scheldt, N Belgium
Deforce, K.; Storme, A.; Bastiaens, J.; Debruyne, S.; Denys, L.; Ervynck, A.; Meylemans, E.; Stieperaere, H.; Van Neer, W.; Crombé, P. (2014). Middle-Holocene alluvial forests and associated fluvial environments: a multi-proxy reconstruction from the lower Scheldt, N Belgium. Holocene 24(11): 1550-1564. dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959683614544059
In: The Holocene. Edward Arnold: Sevenoaks. ISSN 0959-6836; e-ISSN 1477-0911
Peer reviewed article  
Available in  Authors 
    Vlaams Instituut voor de Zee: Open Marine Archive 278610 [ download pdf ]
Keywords
    Hedera helix L. [WoRMS]
    Marine/Coastal; Brackish water; Fresh water
Author keywords
    alluvial forest; Belgium; estuary; macrofossils; microfossils; middleHolocene; multi-proxy; Querco-Ulmetum; river; Scheldt; sedimenttransport
Authors  Top 
  • Deforce, K.
  • Storme, A.
  • Bastiaens, J.
  • Debruyne, S.
  • Denys, L.
  • Ervynck, A.
  • Meylemans, E.
  • Stieperaere, H.
  • Van Neer, W.
  • Crombé, P.
Abstract
    Analyses of pollen, plant macrofossils (seeds, fruits, wood and mosses), molluscs, diatoms and vertebrate (mainly fish) remains allowed a detailed reconstruction of a middle-Holocene alluvial forest and its associated hydrological conditions. The use of multiple proxies resulted in a taxonomically more detailed and environmentally more comprehensive understanding of terrestrial as well as aquatic habitats. The results demonstrate possible biases in palaeoecological reconstructions of alluvial and estuarine environments drawn from single proxies. Many locally occurring woody taxa were underrepresented or remained undetected by pollen analyses. Seeds and fruits also proved to be inadequate to detect several locally important taxa, such as Ulmus and Hedera helix. Apparently brackish conditions inferred from diatoms, pollen and other microfossils conflicted strikingly with the evidence from molluscs, fish bones and botanical macroremains which suggest a freshwater environment. Brackish sediment (and the microfossil indicators) is likely to have been deposited during spring tides or storm surges, when estuarine waters penetrated more inland than usual. Despite the reworking and deposition of estuarine and saltmarsh sediment well above the tidal node at such events, local salinity levels largely remained unaffected.
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