The relationship between the loess stratigraphy in the Vojvodina region of northern Serbia and the Saalian and Rissian Stage glaciations – a review

The regional loess stratigraphy in the Vojvodina region, in the southeastern Carpathian Basin has often been successfully correlated to global palaeoclimate. The loess record in the Carpathian Basin is a quasi-continuous data set on the sedimentary, climatic, and environmental conditions during the last four glacial/interglacial cycles. In this study, we present a standardized loess stratigraphy dataset and illustrate how it correlates with the marine oxygen isotope and Chinese loess stratigraphical records of palaeoclimate. We argue that the loess stratigraphy in Vojvodina region is an important link in the integration of European terrestrial stratigraphical schemes and the marine oxygen isotope stratigraphical model. Despite a few problems with these correlations, the suggested general framework represents a significant stratigraphical approach towards better and chronologically consistent, European stratigraphical models. We highlight how the loess record can better understand terrestrial environmental change through multiple glacial cycles when other records, such as glacial records. In these cases, evidence of glaciations are often missing due to the inherently fragmentary nature of these records, a situation common to most other terrestrial records. The loess sequences of the Carpathian (Pannonian) Basin provide an unique quasi-continuous environmental record that enables direct links to be made between the loess sediment records and their sources - glacial erosion in the Alps and other southern European mountains. This reveals evidence of glaciations during every glacial cycle of the Saalian Stage complex, equivalent to MIS 10, 8, and 6. It is argued, therefore, that loess has the potential to provide a direct link between terrestrial glaciations and wider records of global climate change, which is an enigma for many other continental records, especially during the Saalian Stage complex and equivalent Rissian Stage glaciations (MIS 10-6). The Serbian loess records display a strong relationship with the intensity of European glaciations during different glacial cycles. Loess sedimentation rates are highest in the most entensive European glaciation of the Saalian complex (MIS 6) and much lower during the weaker ‘missing’ glaciations equivalent to MIS 8 and 10.In contrast loess exposures in the Vojvodina region indicate that dust deposition was minimal during the interglacials, as was characteristic for interglacial loess in China. However, in contrast to the Chinese loess which saw deserts form in some interglacials, during the interglacials in Europe soils formed on the loess.A key observation from the Vojvodina loess is that a gradual increase in interglacial aridity through the late Middle Pleistocene (the Saalian complex). The explanation for the progressively increasing aridity in the southeastern Carpathian Basin and the Balkan region at this time is still unclear. However, this trend - of gradually increasing interglacial aridity - is consistent with the idea of the Saalian complex as representing a 400 ka mega glacial cycle modulated by shorter classic 100 ka glacial cycles