Aminostratigraphy of Middle and Late Pleistocene deposits in The Netherlands and the southern part of the North Sea Basin T. Meijer a,c, ⁎, P. Cleveringa b,c a Cainozoic Mollusca, Naturalis—Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum, P.O. Box 9517, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands b Clarissenhof 15,1115 CA Duivendrecht, The Netherlands c WMC Kwartair Consultants, Rammekens 36, 1823 HH Alkmaar, The Netherlands abstract article info Article history: Accepted 20 February 2009 Available online 16 March 2009 Keywords: geological history Quaternary Middle Pleistocene Elsterian Holsteinian Oostermeer Interglacial Eemian Noordbergum Neede Belvédère aminostratigraphy oxygen isotopes correlation North Sea Basin The Netherlands A review of all available amino acid racemization D (alloisoleucine)/L (isoleucine) data from the whole shell of four molluscan species from Late and late Middle Pleistocene deposits of the Netherlands is presented. The data allow the distinction of 5 aminostratigraphical units, NAZ (Netherlands Amino Zone) A–E, each representing a temperate stage. The zones are correlated with marine isotope stages 1, 5e, 7, 9, and 11 respectively. Apart from NAZ-D (MIS 9), in all aminozones the marine transgression reached the present-day onshore area of the Netherlands. The transgression during NAZ-C (Oostermeer Interglacial: MIS 7) seems to be at least as widespread as its counterpart during NAZ-B (Eemian: MIS 5e) in the southern bight of the North Sea Basin. The stratigraphic position of the Oostermeer Interglacial is just below deposits of the Drente phase of the Saalian and because of this position the interglacial marine deposits have formerly erroneously considered to be of Holsteinian age. Neede, the ‘classic’ Dutch Holsteinian site, is dated in NAZ-E (MIS 11), like Noordbergum. Although the validity of these zones has been checked with independent data, some overlap between succeeding zones may occur. The relation between amino acid data from elsewhere in the North Sea Basin and the Netherlands amino zonation is discussed. The deposits at the Holsteinian stratotype Hummelsbüttel in North West Germany are dated in NAZ-D. This interglacial correlates with MIS 9. The Belvédère Interglacial, which is of importance for its archaeology, is in NAZ-D (MIS 9) and therefore of Holsteinian age as well. The lacustroglacial ‘pottery clays’ in the Noordbergum area are deposits from two glacial stages, which can be correlated with MIS 8 and 10 (the Elsterian). The pottery clay that is considered equivalent to the German ‘Lauenburger Ton’ correlates with MIS 10. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In 1950, Van der Vlerk and Florschütz published a subdivision of the Netherlands Quaternary summarizing the data known so far. This work can be considered as the nucleus of all later Dutch Quaternary chronology investigations. The subdivision was mainly based upon the combined results of palaeontological research and the study of lithological characteristics of the sediments, especially their prove- nance (Edelman, 1933). Macrofossil remains of molluscs, vertebrates and plants provided the evidence for a repetitive alternation of periods with warm-temperate and arctic climates that was published later more concisely (Van der Vlerk and Florschütz, 1953). Standardized quantitative analysis was particularly essential in the application of foraminiferal, palynological and sedimentary petrolo- gical research during the subsequent decades and this resulted in a refinement of the subdivision (Zagwijn, 1989). Although widely used in Europe, this climatostratigraphical subdivision suffers from insuffi- cient validation and poor physical dating. From 1985 onwards, results of amino acid racemization (hereafter referred to as AAR) dating of shells have been published from the Netherlands. Miller and Mangerud (1985) showed that marine Eemian deposits in northwest Europe can be distinguished by means of AAR dating from older and younger deposits. Apart from their characteristic molluscan assem- blages in The Netherlands, these marine deposits have always been assigned to the Eemian because of their superposition with respect to the till of the Saalian ‘Drente phase’. The data presented by Miller and Mangerud (1985) included several important sites in The Netherlands, among which are the stratotypes of the Eemian at Amersfoort and of the Noordbergum Interglacial. Later, data have been published from several other sites (Bates, 1993; Meijer and Preece, 2000; Meijer, 2003; Meijer and Cleveringa, 2003; Beets et al., 2005). Because better analytical methods in amino acid analysis have been developed (Kaufman and Manley, 1998) and the application of an enhanced method is at hand (Penkman et al., 2008), we decided to review all available Netherlands ‘traditional’ AAR data for the standard species we used, previously published as well as unpublished. The present paper summarizes these investigations, presents data for critical sites and aims to present a validation of a much-debated part of Global and Planetary Change 68 (2009) 326–345 ⁎ Corresponding author. Cainozoic Mollusca, Naturalis—Nationaal Natuurhistorisch Museum, P.O. Box 9517, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands. E-mail address: t.meijer@inter.nl.net (T. Meijer). 0921-8181/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2009.03.004 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Global and Planetary Change journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/gloplacha