Elisa J. Kagan

Sea-land paleoclimate correlation in the Eastern Mediterranean region during the late Holocene

18 O) of the epipelagic foraminifera Globigerinoides ruber (G. ruber) and of carbonate cave deposits (speleothems) from the Eastern Mediterranean (EM) region, Israel, are linked through the hydrological cycle. The Soreq speleothem δ 18 O record matches the marine δ 18 OG. ruber record for the EM Sea during the last 3600 years, with an almost constant ∆δ 18 OG.ruber-speleothems of 5.54 ± 0.26‰, similar to the present-day offset. Thus, a link between land and marine isotopic records is established. Both of these can be considered reliable recorders of the climatic conditions that prevailed in the land-locked EM region during the late Holocene. Several climatic events are documented during the Holocene, superimposed on a general aridity trend that started ~8000 yr BP. Among these climatic events are three humid events, at ~3200, ~1300, and ~700 yr BP, the last one being associated with the global Medieval Warm Period humid event. Three dry events occurred, at 2100, 900, and 300 yr BP, the last one coinciding with the Little Ice Age.

Dating large infrequent earthquakes by damaged cave deposits

The long-term recurrence patterns of past earthquakes are of considerable consequence for hazard assessments, and have implications for earthquake physics. We introduce a rigorously dated record of earthquakes from an extensive number of well-preserved pre- seismic and postseismic precipitates from caves located off the Dead Sea transform. We dated events directly at the paleoseismic contact by means of a novel correlation method with the oxygen isotope record of the speleothems recovered in one of the caves. Within the 185 k.y. covered, we dated 38 seismite samples. These stem from 13-18 earthquakes with a mean recurrence interval of ;10-14 k.y. We show that the deformational events dated in the study caves complement independent near-fault paleoseismic records by tem- poral correlation with the earthquakes recorded therein. This opens up a significant new avenue of earthquake research that will provide precise dating and observational con- straints on large infrequent earthquakes.