Giralt, S., Hernández, A., Pla-Rabes, S., Antoniades, D., Toro, M., Granados, I., & Oliva, M. (2020). Chapter 3 - Holocene environmental changes inferred from Antarctic lake sediments (M. Oliva & J. B. T.-P. A. Ruiz-Fernández (eds.); pp. 51–66). Academic Press. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-817925-3.00003-3
Abstract
The Holocene environmental evolution of Antarctica is characterized through a review of the already published literature on lacustrine sedimentary records.
The last deglaciation process started between 27 and 22 ka cal BP, although the first lakes did not form until ca. 18 ka cal BP. Also, they did not appear at the same time, but first in East Antarctica and later in the Antarctic Peninsula. The first warm Holocene period occurred between 11.5 and 9 ka cal BP. Most of the deglaciation process seems to be achieved at ca. 7 ka cal BP (although some areas of the Byers Peninsula were still ice-covered by this time), while the mid-Holocene Hypsithermal period took place between 4.5 and 2 ka cal BP. All these periods exhibit a complex temporal and spatial pattern, possibly related to both the difficulties in building robust chronological frameworks for these sedimentary records and the irregular geographical distribution of the studied cores. During the last 50 years the lacustrine dynamics of most lakes has changed owing to anthropogenic global warming and associated threats.
