TY - JOUR

T1 - Late Quaternary soil genesis and vegetation history on the northern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, East Africa

AU - Zech, Michael

AU - Leiber, Katharina

AU - Zech, Wolfgang

AU - Poetsch, Thomas

AU - Hemp, Andreas

N1 - Funding Information: We would like to thank L. Palenberg and C. Hörold for support during laboratory work. XRF-analyses were kindly carried out by J. Eidam at the University of Greifswald, Germany. We are grateful to Prof. Dr. B. Huwe for providing laboratory facility and to B. Buggle for useful discussions. We also acknowledge the detailed and valuable reviews provided by two anonymous reviewers, the valuable comments by Guest-Editor PD. Dr. C. Lorz and the proofreading kindly made by the Editor Prof. Dr. N. Catto. We thank the Tanzanian Commission for Science and Technology for permitting research. The study was funded by the German Research Foundation ( DFG: HE 2919/9-1 ; ZE 154/1-4 ). Copyright: Copyright 2011 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

PY - 2011/10/26

Y1 - 2011/10/26

N2 - This study presents numerical dating and geochemical results obtained for a soil transect on the northern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, East Africa. Accordingly, the investigated soils in the montane forest zone comprise Late Quaternary palaeosol-sequences, which are characterised by inverted weathering profiles. This can be explained through the aeolian accumulation of unweathered volcanic dust that is provided by katabatic winds from uncovered periglacial hillsides since at least 28 ka cal. BP. Several proxies (C/N, δ13C, δ15N and alkane biomarkers) provide evidence for vegetation changes during the Late Quaternary. Strikingly, an expansion of savannah or alpine C4 grasses as on nearby Mt. Kenya cannot be confirmed. However, C3 grasses expanded remarkably at 2600 m a.s.l. during the last glacial maximum and montane forest communities replaced the ericaceous/grassy communities during the Early Holocene.

AB - This study presents numerical dating and geochemical results obtained for a soil transect on the northern slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, East Africa. Accordingly, the investigated soils in the montane forest zone comprise Late Quaternary palaeosol-sequences, which are characterised by inverted weathering profiles. This can be explained through the aeolian accumulation of unweathered volcanic dust that is provided by katabatic winds from uncovered periglacial hillsides since at least 28 ka cal. BP. Several proxies (C/N, δ13C, δ15N and alkane biomarkers) provide evidence for vegetation changes during the Late Quaternary. Strikingly, an expansion of savannah or alpine C4 grasses as on nearby Mt. Kenya cannot be confirmed. However, C3 grasses expanded remarkably at 2600 m a.s.l. during the last glacial maximum and montane forest communities replaced the ericaceous/grassy communities during the Early Holocene.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=80052663923&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.quaint.2011.05.020

DO - 10.1016/j.quaint.2011.05.020

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:80052663923

VL - 243

SP - 327

EP - 336

JO - Quaternary international

JF - Quaternary international

SN - 1040-6182

IS - 2

ER -