Last Glacial to Holocene vegetation succession recorded in polyphase slope-failure deposits on the Maleník Ridge, Outer Western Carpathians Vlasta Jankovsk  a a , Ivo Baro  n b, * , Daniel Nývlt c, d , Old  rich Krej  cí c , Vladimíra Krej  cí c a Institute of Botany, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Laboratory of Paleoecology, Lidick a 25/27, 602 00, Brno, Czech Republic b Institute of Rock Structure and Mechanics, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Department of Engineering Geology, V Hole sovi ck ach 94/4, 182 09 Prague, Czech Republic c Czech Geological Survey, Brno Branch, Leitnerova 22, 658 69, Brno, Czech Republic d Department of Geography, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotl a rsk a 2, 611 37, Brno, Czech Republic article info Article history: Received 21 February 2017 Received in revised form 20 October 2017 Accepted 31 October 2017 Available online 13 November 2017 Keywords: Landslide Palaeovegetation MIS 3 Late glacial Holocene Outer Western Carpathians abstract Structural settings and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of a polyphase Late Pleistocene deep-seated landslide at the Maleník Ridge in the Eastern part of the Czech Republic are presented. The deep-seated rotational landslide is about 480 m long and 1540 m wide and it is a part of much larger landslide complex. The depositional record of two generations of former near-scarp depressions revealed a mul- tiple deep-seated landslide activity during the last Quaternary climatic cycle. With the minimum age of 47704 ± 2346 cal b2k, the landslide belongs among the oldest dated landslides in the outer Western Carpathians and Carpathian Foredeep in the Czech Republic. The younger reactivation started at 12662 ± 73 cal b2k during Younger Dryas. The palaeobotanical and depositional record from the land- slide brought unique palaeoenvironmental data for two time intervals of the last Quaternary climatic cycle. The reconstructed MIS 3 forest vegetation with the predominance of stone pine-larch (Pinus cembra e Larix) taiga with Pinus sylvestris and Betula pendula/pubescens are the first evidences of the forest vegetation for the GS13 to GI12 transition in Outer Western Carpathians. Similarly, documented events of MIS 3 landslide activity from Outer Western Carpathians are rather rare. The Late Glacial to Holocene record from the younger near-scarp depression revealed vegetation and landscape changes during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition. The evidenced oldest parts of the landslide at the Maleník Ridge had to originate during more humid interpleniglacial conditions. The geomorphological evidence for landslide activity from this period has almost completely disappeared from the ground surface topography due to intensive periglacial processes operating later during the Last Glacial Maximum and subsequent fluvial and anthropogenic processes of the Holocene. The cold and relatively dry period of the pleniglacial is considered as a time when deep-seated mass movements use to be halted and overprinted by shallow solifluction of the active layer masking former deep-seated landslide features. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Detailed reconstructions of past environments are essential for better understanding the on-going dynamics and trends of global environmental and climatic change (Andersen et al., 2006). Infor- mation on Quaternary palaeoenvironments is archived in plenty of terrestrial and subaqueous conditions, such as glaciers (Johnsen et al., 2001; Holzhauser et al., 2005), lacustrine deposits (Lotter et al., 1992; Lotter, 1999), peat bogs (Müller et al., 2003), or cave speleothems (Sp€ otl et al., 2002, 2006) and others. Changes in local vegetation, humidity and temperature are relatively well under- stood in the areas with such natural archives. Hilly to mountainous regions of Central Europe, where generally erosion prevails over deposition, are generally poor in sediments bearing suitable palaeoenvironmental information. In previously glaciated mountain ranges of Central Europe, palaeobotanical re- cords could be achieved from lakes originating after the glacier * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: vlasta.jankovska@brno.cas.cz (V. Jankovsk a), ivo.baron@irsm. cas.cz (I. Baro n). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quaint https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2017.10.048 1040-6182/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. Quaternary International 470 (2018) 38e52