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Provenance of late Pleistocene loess in central and eastern Europe: isotopic evidence for dominant local sediment sources

Fenn, K.; Millar, I. L.; Bird, A.; Veres, D.; Wagner, Doris

Authors

K. Fenn

I. L. Millar

D. Veres

Doris Wagner



Abstract

Loess profiles along the Danube River provide a record of long-term Quaternary dust (loess) deposition in central-eastern Europe. Here, Sr-Nd isotopic data from four loess-palaeosol profiles (47 samples) spanning the last two-glacial-interglacial cycles are presented. The isotopic compositions generated by this study are compared with bedrock and sedimentary samples from Europe and North Africa to decipher the sources of sediment. The results demonstrate that over the last 300 ka the alluvial plains of the Danube (which are themselves sourced from surrounding mountain belts) are a local source of material and consequently sediment experiences aeolian transport over relatively short distances. The results dispute the commonly held assumption that the Sahara was a sediment contributor to loess in central-eastern Europe as North African contributions are not needed to explain loess signatures. Consequently, the findings suggest a suppressed southerly wind direction and dominance of the westerly and north-westerly wind systems over the entirety of the record.

Citation

Fenn, K., Millar, I. L., Bird, A., Veres, D., & Wagner, D. (2025). Provenance of late Pleistocene loess in central and eastern Europe: isotopic evidence for dominant local sediment sources. Scientific reports, 15(1), Article 1624. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-83698-5

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Dec 17, 2024
Online Publication Date Jan 10, 2025
Publication Date Jan 10, 2025
Deposit Date Feb 3, 2025
Publicly Available Date Feb 4, 2025
Journal Scientific reports
Print ISSN 2045-2322
Publisher Nature Publishing Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 15
Issue 1
Article Number 1624
DOI https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-83698-5
Public URL https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/5011371

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Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2025.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.




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