We present a chronology of ice recession in the eastern Pyrenees based on in situ-produced 10Be data obtained from the Têt paleoglacier complex. The sampling strategy is based on the relative chronology provided by a detailed geomorphological map of glacial landforms. Results indicate that the last maximum ice advance occurred late (i.e., during Marine Isotope Stage 2) compared to the chronology currently established for the rest of the Pyrenees. Despite debatable evidence for a glacial readvance during the Oldest Dryas stade, ice-cap melt-out was rapid, residual cirque glaciers having disappeared by the Allerød interstade. This is consistent both with North Atlantic excursions established by the Greenland ice cores and paleoenvironmental data for the region. The rapid response of the east-Pyrenean ice cap to temperature variations is primarily linked to its small size compared to larger Pyrenean ice fields, to the dry Mediterranean climate, and to topography-related nonlinearities in which a small vertical rise in equilibrium line altitude generates a large change in ice mass. Possible sources of age uncertainty are discussed in the context of sampling design for single-nuclide (10Be) dating of landform sequences in formerly glaciated landscapes. 相似文献
This study proposes an efficient new cleaning procedure for measuring in situ cosmogenic 10Be in olivines and pyroxenes. This chemical routine is specially designed to decontaminate the abundant meteoric 10Be from these minerals. The method was tested on mafic minerals from basaltic flows of Mt. Etna volcano and from Hawaiian flows and moraines. A sequential dissolution test shows that 10Be concentrations decrease with the number of cleaning steps until reaching a constant value. This is a necessary condition to demonstrate the efficiency of the method in properly decontaminating samples of meteoric 10Be. Moreover, cross-calibration with cosmogenic 3He measured within the same samples yielded a sea level high-latitude production rate of 4.5±0.4 at g−1 a−1 for cosmogenic 10Be in mafic minerals. This rate is within 1σ uncertainty of empirically or model-derived rates for 10Be on the same targets. Such concordance supports the consistency of the new method. 相似文献