MILLENNIAL-SCALE CLIMATE VARIABILITY IN THE PAST 600,000 YEARS BASED ON HIGH-RESOLUTION SPELEOTHEM RECORDS FROM EASTERN NORTH AMERICA

Abrupt climate changes including terminations of glacial and interglacial, Heinrich events, Dansgaard-Oeschger (D/O) events, the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), Younger Dryas, and Bond events have been documented in many terrestrial records since the late Pleistocene. A series of high-resolution speleothem records from the southeastern Appalachian region demonstrate millennial-scale climate variability associated with these abrupt events. Age distribution of more than 100 speleothems shows that most speleothems grew at warm and wet periods especially during MIS 5. In most cases, growth rates of speleothems during warm and wet periods are relatively fast. The timing of Heinrich events and interglacial to glacial transitions are well constrained by abrupt increases in δ¹⁸O and δ¹³C values along with elevated Sr concentrations.