EPlSL ELSEVIER Earth and Planetary Science Letters 150 ( 1997) 17 1- 176 Express Letter Comparison of terrestrial and marine records of changing climate of the last 500,000 years P.C. Tzedakis a.*, V. Andrieu b, J.-L. de Beaulieu b, S. Crowhurst ‘, M. Follieri d, H. Hooghiemstra e, D. Magri d, M. Reille ‘, L. Sadori d, N.J. Shackletonr ‘, T.A. Wijmstra e zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJI a Godwin Institute for Quatemay+ Research, Department of Geography. University of Cambridge. Downing Place, Cambridge CB2 3EN, UK b Laboratoire de Botanique historique et Palyologie. URA CNRS 1152, 13397 Marseille cede-x 20. France ’ Godwin Institute for Quaternary Research, Department of Earth Sciences, Godwin Laboraton. Free School L.untv, Cambridge CB2 3RS. UK d Dipartimenro di Biologia Vegetale, Unioersit6 di Roma “La Sapienza”, P. le Aldo More 5. 00185 Rome, Italy ’ Hugo de Vries Laboratory, Department of Palynology and Paleo / Actuo-Ecology. The Netherlands Centre for Gee-ecolo&al Reseurch (ICG). University of Amsterdam, Kruislaan 318. 1098 SM Amsterdam, zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVU The Netherlands Received 20 January 1997; revised 18 April 1997: accepted 26 April 1997 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXW Abstract A broad correspondence between long pollen sequences and the deep-sea oxygen isotope record has been noted for some time, but there has been little effort to explore just how similar the two types of evidence are in terms of their overall structure on glacial-interglacial timescales and also how they may differ. These questions have profound importance both for how we view the stratigraphic record of changing climate in different regions and for our understanding of the climate system. Here we link the four longest European pollen records and derive a terrestrial sequence of vegetation events and a coherent stratigraphic zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA scheme for the last 500,000 years. Comparison of the terrestrial and marine records ‘shows good agreement, but it also reveals that the pollen sequences contain a higher degree of climate sensitivity than the oxygen isotope record. In addition, it suggests that neither an oxygen isotope record nor a Milankovitch-forced ice volume1 model may provide an appropriate template for fine-tuning the terrestrial record and that better chronologies will depend on un improved understanding of controls on sedimentation rates in individual sedimentary basins. 0 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. Keywords: pollen; 0- 18/O- 16; chronostratigraphy; Quatemary In contrast to the situation at higher latitudes, where the effects of glacial and periglacial processes have produced stratigraphic discontinuities, favourable geological conditions in southern Europe * Corresponding author. E-mail: pctl 1 @cus.cam.ac.uk have led to the relatively undisturbed accumulation of thick sedimentary Quatemary sequences. Such sequences provide an opportunity to develop com- plete and high-resolution records of terrestrial events over multiple glacial-interglacial cycles land bypass the problem of reconstructing a record by piecing it together from isolated deposits of ofteh uncertain chronostratigraphic position. The records discussed 0012-821X/97/$17.00 0 1997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved PII SOOl2-821X(97)00078-2