The Reconstruction of Late Quaternary Climatical Conditions in Part of North Iran (Neka Loesses) Using Magnetic Parameters and Geochemistry

The study area is situated at about 8 km away of Neka city, on the main road of Sari Behshahr, in Mazandaran Province, north of Iran. It is bounded by Alborz fault in the south and Caspian Sea coast line in the north. We applied new environmental magnetism technique and methods including magnetic susceptibility, magnetic mineralogy, IRM and S-IRM to reconstruct the past 50 ka climate conditions and also investigate relationship between climate change and magnetic variations. We also compared the geochemistry and magnetic analysis of the loess/palaeosol deposits and the results were used to correlate these variations with climate change in the study area. The pattern of variation of geochemical data shows similarity with those of magnetic one. The increase/decrease in magnetic susceptibility is coinciding with palaeosol/ loess sequences. Plotting magnetic susceptibility variation versus lithological column of Kolet section enabled us to recognize short period of climatically cycles known as stadials/interstadials in loess/palaeosol sequences. We recognized 4 stadials for upper palaeosol, single stadial for lower palaeosol, 6 interstadials for upper loess and one interstadial for lower loess deposites.