A new Andean deep ice core from Nevado Illimani (6350 m), Bolivia E. Ramirez a;b , G. Ho¡mann b;  , J.D. Taupin a , B. Francou a , P. Ribstein a , N. Caillon b , F.A. Ferron b;c , A. Landais b , J.R. Petit d , B. Pouyaud a , U. Schotterer e , J.C. Simoes c , M. Stievenard b a Institut de recherche pour le de ¤veloppement, IRD, Paris, France b Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l’Environnement, LSCE, Gif sur Yvette, France c Laborato ¤rio de Pesquisas Anta ¤rticas e Glaciolo ¤gicas, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil d Laboratoire de Glaciologie et Ge ¤ophysique de l’Environnement, LGGE, Universite ¤ Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France e Universita «t Bern, Bern, Switzerland Received 29 November 2002; received in revised form 9 April 2003; accepted 28 April 2003 Abstract A new ice core record from the Nevado Illimani (16‡S), Bolivia, covers approximately the last 18 000 years BP. A comparison with two published ice records, from Sajama (18‡S), Bolivia [Thompson et al., Science 282 (1998) 1858^ 1864] and Huascara ¤n (9‡S), Peru [Thompson et al., Science 269 (1996) 46^50], documents a regionally coherent transition from glacial to modern climate conditions in South America north of 20‡S. The strong resemblance between the Illimani and Huascara ¤n water isotope records and their differences from the Sajama record, in particular during the period from 9000 years BP to 14 000 years BP, suggest that local water recycling or local circulation changes played a major role for Sajama. We interpret the common Illimani/Huascara ¤n water isotope history in terms of a common change from wetter/cooler conditions during glacial times to drier/warmer conditions in the Early Holocene. ß 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: glaciology; ice cores; tropical climate during the last glacial; water isotopes in the Andes 1. Introduction Two existing continuous ice records in the An- des, Sajama and Huascara ¤n, date back to the last glacial stage (LGS) [1,2]. Based principally on the information deduced from the isotopic composi- tion (N 18 O or ND) of the ice of these two deep drillings, Thompson et al. [3] described the degla- ciation sequence for the tropics (Huascara ¤n) and subtropics (Sajama) in South America. For the ¢rst time, an uninterrupted isotope signal was available covering the last 18 000 years in the case of the Huascara ¤n and the last 24 000 years in the case of Sajama. At the bottom of the Huas- cara ¤n and Sajama cores, the ice is isotopically depleted by approximately 5x relative to mod- ern conditions. 0012-821X / 03 / $ ^ see front matter ß 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. doi :10.1016/S0012-821X(03)00240-1 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +33-1-69-08-46-72; Fax: +33-1-69-08-77-16. E-mail address: ho¡mann@lsce.saclay.cea.fr (G. Ho¡mann). Earth and Planetary Science Letters 212 (2003) 337^350 R Available online at www.sciencedirect.com www.elsevier.com/locate/epsl