Paleoclimatology of Fellaw Lake Area_ Iraq: A review

Abstract

Pollen study is considered one of the most climate proxies distributed worldwide since the beginning of the last century. Some areas and regions still lack such proxy studies, the main objective behind this review is to investigate and draw a picture of the past climate and vegetation pattern in northeastern Iraq, where the area obtains only a few small in size natural Lakes, Fellaw Lake is the largest mountain natural Lake in the area considered within the study. In addition, there are tries to present the paleoclimate of the study area depending mostly on the bulk of research conducted near the area due to the nonexistence of pollen studies implemented on Fellaw Lake yet. Accordingly, and after matching the modern and past vegetation patterns of some adjacent lakes to the area such as Zaribar, Merabad Van Lake, and Akgol Lake, the area likely obtains to some extent a similar past climate trend and events and vegetation components, regardless of the factor of variation in latitude and topographic effects which in turn affect the precipitation amount that could lead possibly to variate of vegetation patterns in these conditions. Ultimately, the study area is located in a very climate-sensitive area, where it’s situated among the following regions; Levantine from the west, Mesopotamia from the south, Anatolia from the north, and itself located in the eastern edge of the Irano-Turanian region. This in turn could consider the area to be a refuge for other regions in case of climate deterioration and fluctuations in the late Quaternary.

Keywords

• fellaw lake
• paleoclimate
• pollen
• vegetation