Middle to Late Pleistocene palaeoenvironmental evolution of the southeastern Alpine Valeriano Creek succession (northeastern Italy)

The Middle–Late Pleistocene alluvial and lacustrine succession of Valeriano Creek (southeastern Alpine foothills, 190 m a.s.l.) documents the environmental evolution of the piedmont plain before the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The sedimentary record was investigated by multidisciplinary stratigraphical and sedimentological studies coupled with petrographic and palaeobotanical analysis. A chronology has been provided by luminescence, radiocarbon dating and pollen biochronology. The succession developed at the valley mouth of a small catchment and is confined in the piedmont plain by the alluvial fans of major rivers. The oldest deposits were formed during a cold phase during the late Middle Pleistocene. This part of the piedmont plain was generally stable until Termination II, when it was trenched more than 15 m deep by watercourses. The infilling succession of the trench, mostly by low‐energy alluvial sediments interbedded with mire and peat deposits, documents, for the first time on the southern side of the Alps, the relationships between fluvial activity, vegetation and climate change at the foothills piedmont plain during late Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5. The stadial–interstadial climate forcing implies a local reorganisation of fluvial dynamics and of forest composition, although substantial plant cover persisted even during cooler stadials. In accordance with coeval alluvial and speleothem records from the northern side of the Alps, this environmental evolution supports a very restricted Alpine glaciation of the main fluvial catchments of the southeastern Alps during MIS 5a–d. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.