Setting the basis for a high-resolution record of the late Quaternary to present climate variability from Castiglione maar, central Italy: First results from AMUSED project

Abstract

The AMUSED (A MUltidisciplinary Study of past global climatE changes from continental and marine archives in the MeDiterranean region) project aims at improving knowledge of late Quaternary climate variability and its expressions in different geological settings of the Mediterranean region. In this framework, the Castiglione maar, in the Colli Albani Volcanic District, central Italy, was selected for acquiring a high-resolution and geochronologically well-constrained multi-proxy record by drilling the entire lacustrine succession. Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) profiles were acquired across the central portion and the SW crater edge to depict the geometry of the sedimentary infilling and select the best drilling site. Two parallel cores (C1 and C2), 116 m- and 126.5 m-depth respectively, were recovered from the central sector of the Castiglione basin, where, according to ERT profiles, the sedimentary succession reaches the maximum thickness. The sedimentary infilling consists of fine-grained sediments: mainly fine sand, silt and clay, with minor gravel intervals and numerous tephra layers and volcaniclastic lenses. Specifically, more than 60 tephras were identified and used, alongside other lithostratigraphic features, to correlate the C1 and C2 cores and to assemble a composite section. The variability in magnetic susceptibility, led by glacial-interglacial cycles, and the geochemical fingerprinting of key tephra layers allowed to establish a preliminary chronological framework for the Castiglione succession which certainly spans the last 365 ka, with a mean sedimentation rate of 0.33 mm/yr. The relatively long time span of the Castiglione maar succession arises as a new potentially meaningful node of the network of Mediterranean records for better reconstructing the late Quaternary climate dynamics on a regional and extra-regional scale.