Environmental and climatic reconstructions during Marine Oxygen Isotope Stage 3 from Gossau, Swiss Midlands, based on coleopteran assemblages

The well-known lower lignite layer at Gossau (15 km SE of Zürich, Switzerland) has been radiocarbon-dated to between 30 000 and 54 000 yr BP. Though these dates may be considered to be beyond the acceptable limit of the technique, there can be little doubt on stratigraphical grounds that the deposits date from some early part of MOI Stage 3. The lower lignite has yielded 49 taxa of beetles from which a detailed palaeoenvironmental picture can be reconstructed. Quantified palaeotemperature estimates using the Mutual Climatic Range method, based on this fossil assemblage, indicate that the climate was cold and considerably more continental than it is today in the Swiss Midlands and close to the thermal limit for the growth of trees. The fauna bears similarities to others from the same general period in northern Europe.