Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-rkxrd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-20T14:17:57.989Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Holocene Monsoon Changes Inferred from Lake Sediment Pollen and Carbonate Records, Northeastern Cambodia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Andrew Lee Maxwell
Andrew Lee Maxwell*
Affiliation:
World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), P.O. Box 2467, Phnom Penh 3, Cambodia, E-mail: amaxwell@bigpond.com.kh
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Major Holocene monsoon changes in continental Southeast Asia are reconstructed from analysis of 14C-dated changes in pollen and organic/inorganic carbon in sediment cores taken from permanent, closed-basin, volcanic lakes in Ratanakiri Province, northeastern Cambodia. Analysis focuses on the nature and timing of monsoon changes, inferred from changes in vegetation and lake conditions. These data provide the first well-dated palynological record, covering most of the Holocene and continuous up to the present, from a terrestrial site in mainland Southeast Asia. The record from a 15-m core retrieved from Kara Lake, representing the last 9300 years, shows that the late Glacial conditions ended about 8500 14C yr B.P., more than 1000 years later than sites in southwest China. Summer monsoon intensity increased over the period ca. 8400–5300 14C yr B.P., similar to most other sites in the Asian monsoon region. A subsequent expansion of secondary forests at the expense of dense semievergreen forests suggest a drier climate leading to more frequent fire disturbance. After ca. 3500 14C yr B.P. disturbance frequency may have increased further with increasing seasonality. From ca. 2500 14C yr B.P. to the present, dense forest has recovered in a mosaic with annually burned dry forest, but climate may not be the main control on local vegetation dynamics in the late Holocene.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 56 , Issue 3 , November 2001 , pp. 390 - 400
Copyright
University of Washington

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Angiosperm Pollen Flora of Tropic and Subtropic China. (1982). Science Press, Beijing.Google Scholar
Aravena, R, Warner, B.G, MacDonald, G.M, and Hanf, K.I Carbon isotope composition of lake sediments in relation to lake productivity and radiocarbon dating. Quaternary Research 37, (1992). 333 345.Google Scholar
Biswas, B Quaternary changes in sea-level in the South China Sea. Bulletin of the Geological Society of Malaysia 6, (1973). 229 256.Google Scholar
Boonsener, M The Quaternary stratigraphy of northeast Thailand. Journal of Thai Geosciences 1, (1991). 23 32.Google Scholar
Briggs, L.P The ancient Khmer empire. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 41, (1951). 37 87.Google Scholar
Clemens, S, Prell, W, Murray, D, Shimmield, G, and Weedon, G Forcing mechanisms of the Indian Ocean monsoon. Nature 353, (1991). 720 725.Google Scholar
Dean, W.E Determination of carbonate and organic matter in calcareous sediments and sedimentary rocks by loss on ignition. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology 44, (1974). 242 248.Google Scholar
Faegri, K, and Iversen, J Textbook of Pollen Analysis. (1975). Munksgaard, Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Gaussen, H, Legris, P, and Blasco, F Bioclimats du Sud-Est Asiatique. (1967). Institut Français, Pondichéry.Google Scholar
Geyh, M.A, Kudrass, H.-R, and Streif, H Sea-level changes during the late Pleistocene and Holocene in the Strait of Malacca. Nature 278, (1979). 441 443.Google Scholar
Grimm, E. C. (1991). Tilia-Graph Program. Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL.Google Scholar
Grimm, E. C. (1992). Tilia Program. Illinois State Museum, Springfield, IL.Google Scholar
Hastenrath, S, and Lamb, P.J Climatic Atlas of the Indian Ocean. Part 1: Surface Climate and Atmospheric Circulation. (1979). Univ. of Wisconsin Press, Madison.Google Scholar
Hayes, J.D, Imbrie, J, and Shackleton, N.J Variations in the Earth's orbit: Pacemaker of the ice ages. Science 194, (1976). 1121 1132.Google Scholar
Higham, C The archaeology of mainland Southeast Asia. (1989). Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Huang, T.-C Pollen Flora of Taiwan. (1972). National Taiwan Univ., Botany Department Press, Taiwan.Google Scholar
Jarvis, D.I Pollen evidence of changing Holocene monsoon climate in Sichuan Province, China. Quaternary Research 39, (1993). 325 337.Google Scholar
Kealhofer, L.K, and Penny, D A combined pollen and phytolith record for fourteen thousand years of vegetation change in northeastern Thailand. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 103, (1998). 83 93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelts, K, and Hsu, K.J Freshwater carbonate sedimentation. Lerman, A Lakes: Chemistry, Geology, Physics. (1978). Springer-Verlag, New York. 295 323.Google Scholar
Kutzbach, J.E, and Guetter, P.J The influence of changing orbital parameters and surface boundary conditions on climate simulations for the past 18 000 years. Journal of Atmospheric Science 43, (1986). 1726 1759.Google Scholar
Li, X, and Liu, J Holocene vegetational and environmental changes at Mt. Luoji, Sichuan. Acta Geographica Sinica 43, (1988). 44 51.Google Scholar
Maxwell, A.L Holocene environmental change in mainland Southeast Asia: Pollen and charcoal records from Cambodia. (1999). Louisiana State UniversityUnpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Google Scholar
Maxwell, A.L, and Colm, S.E Lake sediment charcoal records of land-use change in northeastern Cambodia. Abstracts, Assoc. Amer. Geographers 93rd Annual Meeting. (1997, April 1–5). Ft. Worth, Texas.Google Scholar
Maxwell, A. L, and Kam, biu, Liu. (in press), Late Quaternary terrestrial pollen records from the monsoonal areas of continental South and Southeast Asia. In, Bridging Wallace's Line: Environmental and Human History and Dynamics of the Southeast Asian-Australian Region, Kershaw, A. P., Tapper, N., and David, B., Eds, Catena-Verlag, Berlin.Google Scholar
Nieuwolt, S The climates of continental Southeast Asia. Takahashi, K, and Arakawa, H Climates of Southern and Western Asia. (1981). Elsevier, Amsterdam. 1 66.Google Scholar
Overpeck, J, Anderson, D, Trumbore, S, and Prell, W The southwest Indian Monsoon over the last 18 000 years. Climate Dynamics 12, (1996). 213 225.Google Scholar
Patterson, W.A III, Edwards, K.J, and Maguire, D.J Microscopic charcoal as a fossil indicator of fire. Quaternary Science Reviews 6, (1987). 3 23.Google Scholar
Ramage, C.S Monsoon Meteorology. (1971). Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Rollet, B Inventaire Forestier de l'Est Mekong. (1962). UN/FAO, Rome.Google Scholar
Rollet, B La végétation du Cambodge. “Bois et Forêts des Tropiques:” 1ére partie. (1972). p. 3–15.Google Scholar
Rollet, B. 2éme partie. no. 145, pp. 23–38.;Google Scholar
Rollet, B. 3éme partie. no. 146, pp. 3–20. [In French]Google Scholar
Schmid, M Végétation du Vietnam: Le Massif Sud-Annamitique et les Régions Limitrophes. (1974). ORSTOM, Paris.Google Scholar
Stockmarr, J Tablets with spores used in absolute pollen analysis. Pollen et Spores 13, (1971). 615 621.Google Scholar
Sun, X, and Chen, Y Palynological records of the last 11,000 years in China. Quaternary Science Reviews 10, (1991). 537 544.Google Scholar
Sun, X, Wu, Y, Qiao, Y, and Walker, D Late Pleistocene and Holocene vegetation history at Kunming, Yunnan Province, southwest China. Journal of Biogeography 13, (1986). 441 476.Google Scholar
Tucker, M.E, and Wright, V.P Carbonate Sedimentology,. (1990). Blackwell, Oxford. p. 164–190.Google Scholar
Udomchoke, V Quaternary stratigraphy of the Khorat Plateau area, northeastern Thailand. Thiramongkol, N Proceedings of the workshop on correlation of Quaternary successions in South, East, and Southeast Asia. (1989). Dept. of GeologyChulalongkorn University, Bangkok. 69 94.Google Scholar
Vidal, J La Vegetation du Laos. 2éme partie: Groupements Végétaux et Flore. (1960). Travaux du Laboratoire Forestier, Toulouse.Google Scholar
Wright, H.E, Mann, D.H, and Glaser, P.H Piston corers for peat and lake sediments. Ecology 65, (1984). 657 659.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yan, Q, and Hong, X Issues of the Holocene transgression on the southern plain of the Chang–jiang Delta. Acta Oceanologica Sinica 7, (1988). 578 590.Google Scholar
Zhang, J, and Lin, Z The Climate of China. (1985). China Sci. & Technol. Press, Shanghai.Google Scholar
Zhao, X, Geng, X, and Zhang, J Sea level changes of the eastern China during the past 20,000 years. Acta Oceanologica Sinica 1, (1979). 269 281.Google Scholar