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Vegetation response and landscape dynamics of Indian Summer Monsoon variations during Holocene: an eco-geomorphological appraisal of tropical evergreen forest subfossil logs
- Source :
- PLoS ONE, Vol 9, Iss 4, p e93596 (2014), PLoS ONE
- Publication Year :
- 2014
- Publisher :
- Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2014.
-
Abstract
- The high rainfall and low sea level during Early Holocene had a significant impact on the development and sustenance of dense forest and swamp-marsh cover along the southwest coast of India. This heavy rainfall flooded the coastal plains, forest flourishing in the abandoned river channels and other low-lying areas in midland.The coastline and other areas in lowland of southwestern India supply sufficient evidence of tree trunks of wet evergreen forests getting buried during the Holocene period under varying thickness of clay, silty-clay and even in sand sequences. This preserved subfossil log assemblage forms an excellent proxy for eco-geomorphological and palaeoclimate appraisal reported hitherto from Indian subcontinent, and complements the available palynological data. The bulk of the subfossil logs and partially carbonized wood remains have yielded age prior to the Holocene transgression of 6.5 k yrs BP, suggesting therein that flooding due to heavy rainfall drowned the forest cover, even extending to parts of the present shelf. These preserved logs represent a unique palaeoenvironmental database as they contain observable cellular structure. Some of them can even be compared to modern analogues. As these woods belong to the Late Pleistocene and Holocene, they form a valuable source of climate data that alleviates the lack of contemporaneous meteorological records. These palaeoforests along with pollen proxies depict the warmer environment in this region, which is consistent with a Mid Holocene Thermal Maximum often referred to as Holocene Climate Optimum. Thus, the subfossil logs of tropical evergreen forests constitute new indices of Asian palaeomonsoon, while their occurrence and preservation are attributed to eco-geomorphology and hydrological regimes associated with the intensified Asian Summer Monsoon, as recorded elsewhere.
- Subjects :
- Atmospheric Science
Pleistocene
Climate
Holocene climatic optimum
India
lcsh:Medicine
Forests
Trees
Paleoclimatology
lcsh:Science
Holocene
Palynology
Climatology
Evolutionary Biology
Multidisciplinary
Subfossil
Ecology
Ecology and Environmental Sciences
lcsh:R
Biology and Life Sciences
Paleontology
Geology
Geomorphology
Evergreen
Evergreen forest
Earth Sciences
lcsh:Q
Physical geography
Paleoecology
Seasons
Marine transgression
Research Article
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 19326203
- Volume :
- 9
- Issue :
- 4
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- PLoS ONE
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....f2fe297a1887093142c3678273fd830f