Semlac – a key loess-palaeosol sequence of the Banat Lowland (Western Romania) and a prominent Pleistocene section for the SE-Carpathian Basin

Abstract

The Carpathian Basin (CB, Pannonian Basin, Middle Danube Basin) is an important area for studies on loess records on European- and Eurasian scale. Reinvestigations of the Semlac loess section, situated in the South-eastern CB and located at an undercut slope position on the right bank of the Mureş River in its lower reaches (Banat region, western Romanian), show that this site serves as a key-section connecting rather thin sections of loess-like sediments of the Banat foothills close to the Carpathian Mountains with well-studied thick loess sections of the central CB in Hungary and Serbia.The more than 10 m thick loess sequence includes four fossil soil-complexes developed in homogenous and relatively fine silty loess, dating back to marine isotope stage 10. Therefore, Semlac is regarded as a prominent section for the CB, offering possi-bilities to a) improve the understanding of the type and composition of the lowland loess sequences in the CB (loess homoge-neity and pedogenic alteration) also beyond the last interglacial palaeosol complex, b) reconstruct the temporal setting of sev-eral short loess-palaeosol successions in the region, c) gain better insight into the regional palaeoenvironments of the last 300 ka and d) compare the loess of the region to loess-sequences in adjacent areas and even to dust proxy data of the northern hemisphere.The integrated age model is based on luminescence dating in its younger part. The age model of the older part is based on correlation of palae-opedologic, environmental magnetic, and sedimentological data to independently dated northern hemispheric palaeoenvironmental proxy re-cords. This allows comparisons to data from loess sections of the region (Hungary and Serbia) and even from the wider northern hemisphere.The research is part of systematic reinvestigations in the frame of the German CRC 806-project (Collaborative Research Centre 806), focussing on a better understanding of the dispersal of the first Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) into Europe and its palaeoenvironmental context. Although no archaeological remains have been found at the site of Semlac until now, this section provides important local palaeoenvironmental data supporting a better understanding of the archaeologically rich but temporally less resolved sites in the closer vicinity especially those at the Banat foothills of the Carpathian Mountains.

Resources

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Bibliography

Kels, H., Schulte, P., Zeeden, C., Hambach, U., Klasen, N., Lehmkuhl, F. (2018): Semlac – a key loess-palaeosol sequence of the Banat Lowland (Western Romania) and a prominent Pleistocene section for the SE-Carpathian Basin. Geobonn 2018, Living Earth, 2-6 September 2018, Bonn, Germany