Palynostratigraphy and vegetation changes during the early Middle Pleistocene, based on new studies of deposits from Ferdynandów (central eastern Poland)

Abstract

New palynological data from the Ferdynandów site are presented and interpreted against the background of the earlier division of this stratotype pollen sequence by Janczyk-Kopikowa (1975), with special attention to a comparison with the nearest profile of a complete Ferdynandovian succession in Łuków (Łuków Plain). The proposed division of the new pollen diagram from Ferdynandów - into two warm periods of interglacial rank separated by a succession typical of glacial periods - is based on the new division of the Ferdynandovian pollen sequence s.l., applied for the first time by Mamakowa (1996) to the Podgórze B1 pollen profile close to Nowe Miasto on the Pilica river. The two warm units and the cold one between them in the new pollen diagram from the Ferdynandów site correspond to the climatostratigraphic units named Ferdynandovian 1 and 2. Together with the cooling/glaciation (Ferdynandovian 1/2) separating them, the whole Ferdynandovian sequence s.l. can be related to the early Middle Pleistocene Cromerian Complex (Cromerian II Westerhoven and Cromerian III Rosmalen) and Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 13-15.

Keywords

• palynostratigraphy
• climatostratigraphy
• Ferdynandovian pollen succession
• Ferdynandów
• early Middle Pleistocene
• MIS 13-15
• central eastern Poland