Chronology of the impact of Quaternary climate change on continental environments in the Arabian Peninsula

The remains of former lakes show that in the past the Arabian Peninsula experienced much wetter conditions than today. The last of these humid periods dates to about 10 to 5.5 ka ago. The chronological framework for an earlier humid phase, radiocarbon dated to some 35–20 ka, is inconsistent with evidence from other records from the region. Possibly, these ages are significantly underestimating the true depositional age due to methodological problems. The earliest phase of dune accumulation known so far is dated to the penultimate glaciation maximum of the mid latitudes (ca. 150 ka). Subsequently, dune accumulation occurred around 110 ka, 65 ka and 20 ka ago. All these phases concur with rapid drops in global sea level that caused a drying out of the Persian Gulf basin and of the shelf of the Oman coast. In contrast to some previous interpretations, it is concluded here that aeolian deposition has been limited by sediment supply and not by preservation potential.