A multidisciplinary approach to reveal the Sicily

Cent. Eur. J. Geosci. • 2(2) • 2010 • 71-82 DOI: 10.2478/v10085-010-0005-8

Central European Journal of Geosciences

A multidisciplinary approach to reveal the Sicily Climate and Environment over the last 20 000 years Research Article

Alessandro Incarbona1∗ , Giuseppe Zarcone1 , Mauro Agate1 , Sergio Bonomo2 , Enrico Di Stefano1 , Federico Masini1 , Fabio Russo1 , Luca Sineo3 1 Università di Palermo, Dipartimento di Geologia e Geodesia, Via Archirafi 22, 90123 Palermo, Italia, 2 Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto per l’Ambiente Marino Costiero, Via L. Vaccara 61, 91026 Mazara del Vallo (Tp), Italia, 3 Università di Palermo, Dipartimento di Biologia animale, Via Archirafi 18, 90123 Palermo, Italia

Received 8 January 2010; accepted 9 March 2010

Abstract: We present a thorough review of the knowledge on the climate and environment in Sicily over the last 20 000 years, taking into account results of several studies carried using terrestrial and marine records. We obtain a coherent framework of the most important changes succeeded in the island, even if some points need further investigation. All the reconstructions of surface temperatures of the seas and the air surrounding Sicily point out severe climatic conditions during the last glacial period. The steppe- and semisteppe-like vegetation pattern testifies, together with additional evidence from geochemical data of lacustrine evidence, markedly arid conditions. Finally, significant episodes of sea level drop connected Sicily to the Italian Peninsula and favoured the dispersion of faunal elements from southern Italy. The transition between the last glacial and the Holocene was not characterized by a gradual warming but was punctuated by two abrupt suborbital climatic fluctuations: Bølling-Allerød (warm) and Younger Dryas (cold), as recognized in the sediments recovered close to the northern and southern coast of Sicily. A denser arboreal cover is possibly indicated by the occurrence of dormouse and Arvicola remains. Finally the sensitivity of Sicily to climate perturbations is demonstrated by the occurrence of repeated subtle climatic anomalies during the Holocene, including the Little Ice Age, also known from historical chronicles. Forests, woods and Mediterranean maquis developed in the early-middle Holocene. Thereafter was a general decline of arboreal vegetation, following a general aridification trend that seems to be a common feature in southern Europe and North Africa. Since Greek colonization (7th century before Christ), the landscape was intensively modelled for agriculture and breeding, leading to a significant loss of vegetation cover. Keywords: palaeoecology • palaeoclimatology • last glacial maximum • Holocene • Sicily © Versita Warsaw

∗

E-mail: [email protected] 71

A multidisciplinary approach to reveal the Sicily Climate and Environment over the last 20 000 years

1.

Introduction

The island of Sicily is a segment of the Neogene Apenninic-Maghrebian fold and thrust belt. Different structural units are arranged in a chain south-east verging over imposed on a foreland more or less deformed. This range is mainly oriented E-W and the highest peaks do not exceed 2 000 m above sea level. Only the Etna summit, the largest volcano in Europe, reaches 3 400 m above sea level. During the Quaternary, Sicily has been affected by intense tectonic activity and local uplift [1, 2]. The human history of the island was intimately tied to the western civilization development, through the link, among others, to Greek, Roman and Arabian cultures. Sicily is also a unique place in the world for the exceptionally geodiverse heritage, with a continuous geological record from the late Paleozoic to the Quaternary, with over 200 geosites listed by the public administration [3, 4]. Several studies of international relevance have been carried out on Sicily or on the seas that surround it. For instance, data were collected on stable isotopes of lacustrine sediments, speleothems, and pollen fossil grains, while micropaleontological and geochemical data on marine sediments were recovered from the Sicily Channel and the Tyrrhenian Sea (Figure 1). The interpretation of these data allowed gathering of a lot of information dealing with Sicily’s environment in the past. The aim of the present paper is a synthetic view of these data, in order to sketch the climatic, environmental and physiographic evolution undergone since the last glacial maximum (the last 20 kyr). Finally, the framework of climatic and environmental evolution deduced for the central Mediterranean region is tentatively compared to other continental and marine records, in order to recognize possible climate forcing mechanisms.

2.

Last Glacial Maximum

Environmental conditions and the aspect of Sicily during the Last Glacial Maximum, about 20 kyr ago was profoundly different from today. Sea level was at about 110 m below the present [5–8], making the island wider than 17 000 km2 (from 25 883 km2 of today to 43 100 km2 of the last glacial maximum). Sicily was connected to the Italian peninsula and to the island of Malta, allowing the free dispersion of continental fauna (Figure 2a). Temporary land bridges between Sicily and the Italian Peninsula allowed the dispersion of faunas. Such a phenomenon made the mammalian assemblage of Sicily only slightly less diversified with respect to coeval southern Italy assemblages [9]. The dispersion of taxa from southern

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Figure 1.

Maps showing the location of sites discussed in the text. A Bathymetric map of the Mediterranean Sea. B Map of Sicily: 1 Coastal lakes of the Natural Reserve of ‘Gorghi Tondi’; 2 Sicily Channel Site 963 of Ocean Drilling Program; 3 Carburangeli Cave; 4 Tyrrhenian Sea Marine core BS 79-38; 5 Coastal lake of the Natural Reserve of ‘Biviere di Gela’; 6 Pergusa Lake; 7 San Teodoro Cave; 8 Strait of Messina.

Italy led to a large turnover, as can be seen in the completely renewed Castello Faunal Complex (20-9 kyr BP). Endemic large mammals such as elephants, fallow deer and large predators disappeared, as well as most of the endemic small mammals, replaced instead by equids, red deer and aurochs. The arrival of horses and the abundance of the vole Microtus (Terricola) ex gr. savii, supports the occurrence of an open landscape in Sicily [9]. All the available information confirms that severe cold climatic conditions characterized Sicily 20 kyr ago, even if only in a few cases absolute temperature estimates were proposed. Based on the equilibrium line altitude of glaciers, the air temperature reconstruction was lower than 7-8°C, with respect to today [10]. A larger number of studies deals with sea surface temperature (SST) estimates of the surrounding seas. [11, 12] report SSTs between about 10°C - 15°C, on the basis of planktonic foraminifera assemblages. Their reconstructions clearly diverge on the spatial cooling trend respectively westward and northward. The geographical difference is again reported for summer glacial SSTs, which indeed are extremely dissimilar from a numerical point of view, at about 16°C - 20°C for [11] and from about 23°C 25°C for [12]. More recently, planktonic foraminifera assemblages esti-

Alessandro Incarbona, Giuseppe Zarcone, Mauro Agate, Sergio Bonomo, Enrico Di Stefano, Federico Masini, Fabio Russo, Luca Sineo

the establishing of the Azorean High, westerlies blow at a higher latitude, provoking a high pressure regime and drought. Information on northern hemisphere atmospheric circulation is recorded in Greenland ice cores [21–23]. In particular, high values of Na+ in ice cores have been observed during deep Iceland low periods, when enhanced North Atlantic winter atmospheric circulation allows the transport of sea salt to central Greenland. High values of non-sea salt K+ are linked to periods of a strengthened Siberian High. Both of them are proxies for the strength of atmospheric circulation in the northern hemisphere [24] and have been associated with periods of expanded and strengthened polar vortex [22, 25]. During the glacial period, both Na+ and K+ values in Greenland ice core GISP2 are much higher (Figure 3), supporting the significant strengthening of the atmospheric circulation, with strong action of westerlies, the most common phenomenon of perturbation in the central Mediterranean.

Figure 2.

Physiographic evolution of Sicily, based on eustatic changes: A Last Glacial Maximum, sea level at 118 m; B Transition between the Last Glacial Period and Holocene, sea level at -90 m; C Early-middle Holocene, sea level at -13 m.

mated annual SSTs colder than 2-6°C, with possibly major temperature anomalies during the summer (Figure 3) [13– 15]. Much more pronounced is instead the temperature drop of 12-13°C hypothesized by alkenone data in the Tyrrhenian Sea for the uppermost part of the last glacial period [16, 17]. Another interesting point comes from coccolithophore data, and in particular from the absence of species specialized to inhabit the lower and upper photic zone. This fact indicates that during the last glacial period the summer thermocline never reached the lower photic zone and implies that there was a lower temperature difference between atmosphere and sea surface (colder air temperature in the summer) and a strengthened atmospheric circulation (strong winds and storm episodes) [18–20]. Today’s atmospheric circulation in the Mediterranean Basin, in particular in the western-central sector, is seasonally controlled. This area is under the influence of rainy westerlies in the winter. In the summer, because of

The strengthened atmospheric circulation is further confirmed by oceanographic circulation studies on the Mediterranean Sea. In fact, the circulation system of the Mediterranean Sea develops in three layers and is affected by deep water production, which occurs in the northern basin sectors, mainly in the Gulf of Lions and the Adriatic Sea. Deep water forms during these short episodes of blowing northerlies [26, 27]. All data indicate that during the last glacial period, Mediterranean water circulation was strengthened, implying a higher volume production of deep waters, triggered by a stronger and more prolonged wind action in the northern part of the basin [28–32]. The study of sediments and fossil pollen grains from Pergusa Lake offers a snapshot of the vegetation pattern and of the precipitation regime that was established 20 kyr ago. Vegetation was characterized by a high abundance of Artemisia and Chenopodiaceae, indicating a steppe or semi-steppe environment [33]. Steppe environment, even with minor local variations, seemed to be a common feature in southern Europe, since it was recognized among others in the Iberian Peninsula, southern Italy and Greece [34–37]. However, some mesophilous and thermophilous species of Angiosperme trees survived in Sicily and could have behaved as a refugia area, favouring the rapid central Mediterranean re-colonization once climate amelioration happened [33]. Even the occurrence of red deer and wild boars suggests the presence of forested patches [38, 39]. A steppe environment is mostly characterized by low precipitation levels. In Sicily such a characteristic is further supported by overall negative correlation of oxygen isotopic data with the arboreal pollen (and positive correlation to the abundance of Artemisia grains) in Pergusa

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Figure 3.

Down-core variations of climatic/environmental proxies for the last 20 kyr BP, each plotted with its own age model. From the left: δ 18 O record of Greenland ice cores NGRIP, a proxy for air temperature in that region [23]; Paleoclimatic curves of planktonic foraminifera and calcareous nannofossils at ODP Site 963, Sicily Channel [13, 18]; Abundance variations of K+ and Na+ in the Greenland GISP2 ice core [22, 25]; Relative abundance changes (%) in arboreal pollen grains of Lago Grande di Monticchio sediments [34]. The left column indicates boundaries among last glacial period: Bølling-Allerød, Younger Dryas and Holocene.

Lake sediments. In fact, the highest δ 18 O values of the last glacial are interpreted as phases of much reduced rainfall and high evaporation in a dry environment [33, 40] The framework traced out above is fully confirmed by a General Circulation Model carried out on the last glacial in Europe. Severe climate and aridity conditions were established even south of 45°N. In the simulation, temperatures were lower than 2-7°C, with strong westerly activity, while precipitation accounted only for 1.5-5 mm day−1 . Finally, the dominant vegetation type in southern Europe was constituted from temperate grassland, reflecting the substantial decrease in precipitation [41].

3.

Deglaciation

The transition between the last glacial period and the Holocene took 3 kyr (from 14.7 to 11.7 kyr BP) and was the result of higher insulation energy received in response to orbital variations. It was a re-organization phase of the climate system which involved changes in ice sheet volume, Atlantic overturning meridional circulation, atmospheric greenhouse gases and global mean temperature [42–46]. In the Northern Hemisphere, the warming was not gradual but occurred through two suborbital climatic fluctua-

74

tions: Bølling-Allerød (warm) and Younger Dryas (cold), first recognized in Greenland ice cores and North Atlantic sedimentary records [21, 47–49]. Recent studies demonstrated that suborbital-scale climatic fluctuations can be recognized even in the Mediterranean Sea. These events seem to be simultaneous to those in the Greenland ice cores and North Atlantic sediments, possibly because of teleconnession phenomena [16, 17, 28, 29, 31, 32, 50– 57]. In particular, in the Sicily Channel (southern Sicily coast), geochemical and micropaleontological analyses allowed the whole sequence of suborbital climatic fluctuations across the last 115 kyr to be recognized [13, 14, 58]. The warming in the lower part of the Bølling-Allerød can be evaluated in about 5°C in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea, on the basis of alkenones [16] and in about 3-4°C in the Sicily Channel, on the basis of planktonic foraminifera assemblages (Figure 3) [13, 14]. Just after about 1,000 years, in coincidence of the Younger Dryas, the Tyrrhenian Sea and Sicily Channel SST would again be lowered to glacial values [13, 16]. The Bølling-Allerød warm phase and the Younger Dryas cold spell can be interpreted as respectively wetter and drier, following the interpretation of the whole stadial-interstadial sequence in the Sicily Channel [13, 14, 18, 58]. Uncertainty in the chronology of Pergusa Lake sediments does not show the vegetation pattern transforma-


tion through the deglaciation [33, 59]. However, a firm chronology was established for the last 12.8 kyr and highlights the transition towards a much wetter climate and the development of forests and woods, between the Younger Dryas and the Holocene [33, 40]. High-resolution pollen data able to illustrate vegetation changes across the deglaciation in the Mediterranean area have been collected from several marine cores. They report the passage from a semi-desert open environment of the last glacial to an arboreal-rich environment typical of the early phase of the Bølling-Allerød [36, 60–62]. More information is available from Lago Grande di Monticchio (Basilicata, southern Italy). Even if this record is not from Sicily, we argue that it belongs to the same climatic system, today under the influence of the North Atlantic Ocean SST, and is characterized by the same seasonality, with winter atmospheric perturbation and summer high pressure establishment. As a consequence, even if the vegetation pattern of this part of southern Italy is different from that of Sicily, it possibly reacted in a similar way during the last deglaciation period. One of the most striking characteristics of the Lago Grande di Monticchio record is associated with very rapid and sharp vegetation changes, occurring at a centuryscale along the last 130 kyr [34, 63, 64]. The terminal part of the last glacial period was characterized by a steppelike vegetation, similar to that already discussed for sediments of Pergusa Lake (see Section 2). Starting from the Bølling-Allerød base, a gradual increase in tree-pollen grains testifies to the development of a wooded steppe, culminating later in a temperate forest (Figure 3). The Younger Dryas cooling led the environment to revert to a wooded steppe environment [34]. Among vertebrates, the possible occurrence of dormouse and Arvicola, at the transition between the Castello faunal Complex and Holocene assemblages, suggests an increase of precipitation and the development of a suitable arboreal cover. Even Equus hydruntinus might have disappeared in this interval from Sicily and south Italy, because of the reduction of open landscapes [9, 39]. About 14.5 kyr BP, at the beginning of the last deglaciation, there was a low stand of about -90 m [6]. Sicily was still wider than today, at about 33 000 km2 , but the connection with Malta island was likely submerged (Figure 2b). In the Messina Strait exists a possible corridor located at 72 m below sea level, between Punta Pezzo and Ganzirri. Several studies provided estimates of regional uplift rates in the Calabrian-Peloritan Arc, usually between 0.5 and 2.5 mm yr−1 [1, 65–67]. More recently, an estimate of 1.07 and 6 0.95 mm yr−1 has been reported for Northeastern Sicily (S. Alessio) and southern Calabria (Scilla) respectively [2]. An important co-seismic contribu-

tion might have been added, due to local fault actions. In particular, in the Messina Strait, the Scilla Fault activity in the late Holocene would have increased the uplift rate up to 2.1 mm yr−1 [68, 69]. Thus, a shallow seaway might have formed between 15.9 and 11.6 kyr BP, when sea level rose from -89 to -50 m [6]. Occasional evidence of fossil man in Sicily, for instance from Riparo di Fontana Nuova (Ragusa), can be ascribed to the Aurignatian culture (late Paleolithic), to about 30 000 years ago. Apparently, Sicily territories were abandoned after 30 000 years and remained empty of human settlement for several thousand years [70]. The first demographic boom was found during the Epigravettian [71–75], at the transition between the last glacial period and the Bølling-Allerød. The best evidence can be seen at Grotta di San Teodoro (Acquedolci, Messina), where well-preserved skeletal remains of seven individuals were found. An accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon analysis on the skeleton St1 was carried out, and gave a calibrated age of 14 750 years BP [76]. The ancient history of human dispersion in Sicily might therefore be tied to the crossing of the Messina Strait barrier whose history, as discussed above, is not still fully understood.

4.

Holocene

Starting from the Holocene, Sicily assumed a modern physiographic feature, especially since 7.4 kyr BP when sea level rose up to -13 m at (Figure 2c). Holocene climate was thought to be steady, with a unique cooling episode occurring at about 8.2 kyr BP [77]. However, advance and retreat phases in European glaciers were reported by [78]. More recently, such an instability has been proven by Ice Rafted Detritus (IRD) levels in the northern North Atlantic (Figure 4) [79, 80]. Holocene climatic anomalies are now recognized in several records of both hemispheres [81]. Holocene climatic anomalies have been identified in sedimentary cores retrieved from the southern Tyrrhenian Sea and northern Sicily Channel [16, 19]. These studies, based on geochemical and micropaleontological data, depict a series of cooling (2-4°C) and productivity increase episodes that match with the IRD discharge episodes of the North Atlantic (Figure 4). They are interpreted as a result of stronger northerly wind action, which might have prolonged even into the summer season. The Holocene climatic instability of the area is further supported by four episodes of brief cooling, recorded in the Sicilian-Tunisian Channel on the basis of dinoflagellate cyst and planktonic foraminifera assemblages [82]. Climatic anomalies in the Holocene record of the Sicily

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Figure 4.

Down-core variations of climatic/environmental proxies for the last 12 kyr BP, each plotted with its own age model. From the left: Abundance variations of Ice Rafted Detritus lithics from North Atlantic Ocean [79, 80]. The solid line shows Holocene changes on an expanded scale. Labels B1-B8 indicate the so-called “Bond cycles”, used as a master record for Holocene climatic anomalies; percentage variations of the calcareous nannofossils species F. profunda at ODP Site 963, Sicily Channel, which are inversely related to primary productivity [19]; Sea Surface Temperature variations, based on alkenones ratio, at core BS 79-38, southern Tyrrhenian Sea [16]. C1-C5 indicate episodes of cooling. In gray, Holocene climatic anomaly intervals reported from multiple marine and continental records [81].

Channel seem to be repeated every 1 500 years [19], like in the North Atlantic, Pacific Ocean and Greenland [25, 79, 80, 83–87], reflecting a common response of different regions to climate forcing whose origin is still not well understood. The last climatic anomaly is known as the Little Ice Age (LIA) and its main phase spans from 1550 to 1850 AD, when many glaciers of the Northern Hemisphere had the most extensive advance since the Younger Dryas [88–92]. Severe winters during the LIA, with frozen lakes and rivers and icy canals, for instance in Italy, the Netherlands and England, are reported from historical chronicles. Different temperature reconstructions carried out on Northern Hemisphere records envisage drops between 0.5°C and 1°C [93–95]. The impact of the LIA in Sicily is witnessed by two studies. A 2°C SST decrease was reported by geochemical analysis on the Vermetid Reefs along the northern Si-

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cilian coast [96]. A prolonged drought was suggested at Erice (Trapani) by the statistical study of the number of religious processions ‘ad petendam pluviam’ (to invoke rain) [97]. These studies highlight the cooling and drought that characterized Sicily during the LIA. The Sicily vegetation pattern underwent abrupt modifications starting from the Holocene, in response to increased values of insolation, temperature and precipitation. The sedimentary record of Pergusa lake (667 metres above sea level), representative of the inner part of the island, shows that a forest environment developed gradually and culminated at 10 kyr BP [33, 59, 98], while in mountain regions, such as Nebrodi and Madonie (over 1 200 metres above sea level), vegetation consisted of beech, oak, and fir forests [99]. Since 10 kyr BP, there was a significant vegetation cover loss which followed a general aridification trend.


The pollen record of southern coastal regions, such as ‘Biviere di Gela’ and ‘Gorghi Tondi’ coastal lakes (Figure 1) indicates that the most significant change occurred at 10 kyr BP when Mediterranean maquis grew (for instance Pistacia shrubland). Since 7 kyr BP, a forest environment of evergreen broad-leaved trees developed and resisted up to 2.7 kyr BP, when the environment opened (open maquis, garrigue and grassland-prairie) [99, 100]. The decrease in precipitation levels since the middlelate Holocene has been also reported by geochemical data of lacustrine sediments and of Carburangeli Cave speleothems [33, 40, 101, 102]. This phenomenon seems to be tied to the southward shift of the Intertropical Convergence Zone and to the monsoon activity decrease occurring at 5.5 kyr BP that caused desertification and drought in North Africa [103, 104]. Possibly, this phenomenon affected the central Mediterranean region and precipitation levels in Sicily, even if the link between the African monsoon and the activity of high pressure cells over the Mediterranean region is not understood [105]. The precipitation reduction trend had an impact on the vegetation pattern. Even more important might have been the impact of human activities, such as agriculture and breeding. Peaks of micro-charcoal grains suggest that people might have begun soil exploitation in the middle Holocene [33, 99]. However, only with Greek colonization, and especially under Roman domination, the landscape was intensively modelled, leading to a significant vegetation cover loss. Under natural or near-natural conditions, vegetation cover would be far more important than it is today, with Quercus and Olea forests and Mediterranean maquis restricted to drier situations [99, 100]. The Holocene anthropogenic impact is also evident from the extinction of numerous animals on the island. Huntergatherer populations decimated several large mammals, such as wild boars and red deer [106], and also provoked the extinction of endemites indirectly, through the introduction of domestic species and alteration of the vegetation cover [9].

5.

tion [19, 20, 28–30, 32]. Vegetation was characterized by a steppe or semi-steppe environment [33], but some surviving mesophilous and thermophilous species could have favored the rapid central Mediterranean re-colonization once climate amelioration happened [33]. The transition between the last glacial period and the Holocene occurred through two suborbital climatic fluctuations: Bølling-Allerød (warm) and Younger Dryas (cold). The warming in the lower part of the Bølling-Allerød can be evaluated in about 5°C in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea and in about 3-4°C in the Sicily Channel. Just after about 1 000 years, in coincidence of the Younger Dryas, SST would again be lowered to glacial values [13, 16]. Holocene climatic anomalies have been identified in sedimentary cores retrieved from the southern Tyrrhenian Sea and northern Sicily Channel [16, 19]. The last climatic anomaly, known as the Little Ice Age, is witnessed by a 2°C SST cooling along the northern Sicilian coast [96] and by a prolonged drought [97]. A forest environment developed gradually and culminated at 10 kyr BP in the inner part of the island and mountain regions [33, 59, 98, 99]. Since 10 kyr BP, there was a significant vegetation cover loss which followed a general aridification trend. The decrease in precipitation levels, since the middle-late Holocene, is also reported by geochemical data from lacustrine sediments and speleothems [33, 40, 102]. In southern coastal regions, Mediterranean maquis expanded about 10 kyr ago. Since 7 kyr BP, a forest environment of evergreen broadleaved trees developed and resisted up to 2.7 kyr BP, when the environment became open (open maquis, garrigue and grassland-prairie), due to intensive anthropogenic landuse [99, 100].

Acknowledgments We are grateful to two anonymous reviewers who provided valuable comments and suggestions. This study was supported by MURST ex 60% grants E. Di Stefano.

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