The Late glacial and Holocene environmental history of the Ioannina basin, north-west Greece

This study centres on palaeoenvironmental analysis of the upper part of a long core from the partially drained, tectonic Ioannina basin, north-west Greece. The data span the Lateglacial and Holocene and comprise pollen, mollusc, magnetic susceptibility, loss-on-ignition and particle size analyses. These augment previously published ostracod and stable isotope data from the same sediment sequence. The age model for the sequence is based on 19 AMS dates, five of which were obtained using a novel procedure for the separation of microcharcoal from sediment. The pollen data suggest that although temperate woodland expanded at the beginning of the Lateglacial, only limited woodland contraction occurred during the Younger Dryas chronozone, despite strong evidence for a sharp drop in sea surface temperature in the neighbouring Adriatic at this time. In contrast, large-scale vegetational and sedimentological changes occur in concert during the Holocene, some of which may be ascribed to human impact. Comparison with other records from the Ioannina basin suggests that previous, more littoral pollen sequences did not constitute a wholly representative record of Lateglacial and Holocene vegetational change.