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The QECCoRA project aims to contribute to our knowledge of the evolution of vegetation in Southern Europe through geological time and present the climatic fluctuations and alternations of environments during the Quaternary on a millennial basis, based on the palynological analysis (pollen, spores, algae, fungi, dinoflagellates, microscopic charcoal) of the recovered deposits of the IODP Exp. 381. Based on the collaborations within the research team of the IODP Exp. 381 (projects concerning sedimentology, geochemistry,magnetostratigraphy, dating methods and micropalaeontological analyses), the palynological analyses in the context of this project are crucial, since they shall considerably contribute to the resolution of the dynamic correlation between vegetation and climate at the Southernmost point of the Balkan Peninsula during the Quaternary.
Main objectives of the project:
To provide a continuous long record of vegetation dynamics through the successive glacial-interglacial cycles in the borderlands of the Gulf of Corinth
To constrain the timing of extinction events of relict tree taxa in the area over the Pleistocene and identify possible temperate tree refugia in Southern Greece
To decipher the alternation between marine and isolated/semi-isolated depositional environments in relation to the eustatic sea level changes and active tectonics in the Corinth Gulf using the phytoplankton record.
The research challenges to be addressed are:
1) How did plant ecosystems in the borderlands of Gulf of Corinth respond to the Quaternary glacial-interglacial cycles?
2) How diverse was the regional flora during the Pleistocene?
3) How did the depositional palaeoenvironments in the Gulf of Corinth evolve?