Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
ÜNAL İMER E. (Yürütücü), KADIOĞLU Y. K.
TÜBİTAK Projesi, 3501 - Ulusal Genç Araştırmacı Kariyer Geliştirme Programı, 2024 - 2027
Türkiye's modern climate is largely affected from the North Atlantic/Siberian pressure systems during winter and from the African and Indian monsoon climate systems coming from the south during summer periods. Identifying the past climatic conditions of the Eastern Mediterranean, including Türkiye and also having hosted various important civilizations for many years, is of great importance in order to understand the climatic changes that are expected to occur in the near future, to obtain reliable climate models, and to understand how societies adapt to the changing climate conditions.
Speleothems deposited as layers in the cave environment can be dated precisely using U-series dating techniques. Stalagmites, with known depositional age ranges, are important natural terrestrial records because they shed light on historical climate changes through mineralogical and geochemical analyses (e.g. stable isotope and trace element) carried out along their growth axes. Detailed stalagmite-based detailed mineralogical, isotope (δ13C, δ18O, 87Sr/86Sr) and trace element data sets provide important information about past climatic and environmental conditions such as cave bedrock-rainwater-soil interactions, biogenic activity in the vegetation, atmospheric changes due to volcanism, and moisture source. In this project, high-resolution geochronological, mineralogical and geochemical (O-C isotopes and trace element) analyses will be performed on three previously-dated stalagmites, collected from the Sırtlanini Cave (Aydın) and also from an old cave in a travertine quarry near Bucak (Burdur). Obtained results will be used to reconstruct late Holocene climatic conditions in western and central Anatolia and to produce new paleoclimate records. This study will particularly focus on the possible cultural effects of the sudden climate change event known as the Late Bronze Age 3.2 ka (1177/1200 BCE) drought event in Anatolia, which is thought to have occurred on a global scale in the recent past. The 3.2 ka event has been a subject of intensive research in the paleoclimate community, and is closely related to the human activities (e.g. agricultural productivity in the Hittite Empire).