Late Pleistocene in South America

A. CORONATO; RABASSA, J

Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2013; p. 250 - 256

Introduction An updated review of the current state of the knowledge of late Pleistocene glaciations in South America, previously published in the first edition of this Encyclopedia (Coronato and Rabassa, 2007), is presented here. As this article is a revision of the previous work, only the contributions published during the last 5 years are discussed. The glacial sequences of the Andean Cordillera are presented here separately for the Northern, Central, and Southern Andes. The chronology of glacial advances has been refined in recent years, mostly through the use of different dating techniques, mainly cosmogenic radionuclides (10Be, 26Al) applied in several geographical areas such as the tropical Andes of Bolivia, the arid mountains of northern Chile and northwestern Argentina, Patagonia, the Magellan Straits, and Tierra del Fuego. In the Patagonian eastern side of the Andes, the occurrence of volcanic flows related to the different drifts favored the use of 39Ar/40Ar incremental heating dating technique as an option. Radiocarbon dating has also been undertaken on many lake-sediment cores and peat and organic sediments related to glacial deposits. In addition to advances in glacial chronology, precise regional mapping has improved and geomorphological knowledge has increased,mainly through the use of digital terrain models (DTMs) and satellite imagery as mapping tools. In addition, paleoseismic, stratigraphical, and sedimentological analyses have been undertaken on sediment cores from tropical and Patagonian lakes and fjords, which have contributed to the understanding of the late Pleistocene climate changes. Detailed reviews of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) in Patagonia are given by Rabassa (2008), Coronato and Rabassa (2011), Martı´nez et al. (2011), and Rabassa et al. (2011), while detailed information on the glacial advances during the Wisconsinan Late Glacial and the Holocene in the Central Andes is presented by Rodbell et al. (2009).