The chronology of the last termination: A review of radio carbon-dated, high-resolution terrestrial stratigraphies

The Last Termination is traditionally subdivided into the Oldest Dryas, Bolling, Older Dryas, Allerod, Younger Dryas and Preboreal Chronozones. This paper briefly summarizes the history of the Late Weichselian chronostratigraphic system and gives an overview of recent developments in radiocarbon dating terrestrial records between 15,000 and 10,000 C-14 years BP. Problems inherent in the traditional chronostratigraphy are discussed in the light of new and more advanced dating possibilities, including accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) measurements on terrestrial macrofossils. New results obtained using AMS-C-14 dated varve sequences are compared with each other and with the marine U/Th coral record. In addition, the importance of time-synchronous marker horizons as a tool for long-distance correlation between different archives is illustrated. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd