Latest Pleistocene-Holocene paleoclimatic record and sea-level changes in the central Adriatic Sea: Foraminifera evidence from Core A 85-10

Abstract

A quantitative study was carried out on the planktonic and benthonic Foraminifera from Core A 85-10 recovered in the Meso-Adriatic Depression (Centra! Adriatic Sea). Sediments are uppermost Pleistocene to Holocene in age, probably spanning over the last 18,000 years. A paleoclimatic curve was constructed based on the relative abundance of warm and cold species of planktonic Foraminifera documenting the climatic evolution of the sediments. On the basis of the change in composition of the planktonic foraminiferal assemblages three main biostratigraphic intervals were recognized and interpreted as: last glacial, deglacial and Holocene. Variations in the benthonic foraminiferal assemblages allow to reconstruct sea level changes connected with the Flandrian transgression. The acquired data also suggest that some benthonic foraminiferal species could have survived in a shallower environment than that currently known in the Adriatic Sea.