The peatbogs of Argentine Tierra del Fuego as a source for paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental information. Chapter 6.

RABASSA J.; CORONATO A.; HEUSSER C.; ROIG JUÑENT F.; BORROMEI A.; ROIG C.; QUATTROCCHIO M.

Peatlands: Evolution and records of environmental and climate change

Elsevier Science Ltd.

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2006; p. 129 - 144

Tierra del Fuego is the southernmost inhabited region in the world, closest to the Antarctic Peninsula and the Circum-Polar Current, the oceanic factor that controls most of the climate around our planet. Peatlands have developed in the central and southern part of Argentine Tierra del Fuego, which allow reconstruction of uppermost Pleistocene-Holocene history of the land. These Fuegian (meaning “of Tierra del Fuego”) peatlands are unique environments because of their geographical location, floristic and hydrological nature, ecosystem significance, and paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic records (Bonarelli, 1917). Indeed, these peatlands can be considered as environmental data banks, since the sediments accumulated in their layers contain information related to the environmental, ecological and climatic conditions existing in the surrounding region. Due to their continued sedimentation pattern, a continued paleoclimatic record may be often obtained, which may be constrained with great precision and reliability by means of radiocarbon dating of wood fragments or of the peat itself. Fuegian peatlands are true cathedrals of the paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic knowledge of southernmost South America. Therefore, a great effort is needed to preserve them since these ecosystems will work as continuous data archives in the future. Here, a short review of what is known about the Fuegian peatlands, their nature, distribution, paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental proxy content, and their relationship with the human settlement of Tierra del Fuego is presented.