Frank Preusser

University of Freiburg | Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg · Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences

The present‐day landscape of the northern Alpine foreland is marked by the cumulated impact of weathering during interglacial, and of erosion and deposition during glacial periods of the Quaternary. Direct traces of the earliest phases of ice advance, as well as thorough studies thereof, exist only sporadically. Here, a succession of diamictic depo...

The drainage system of the Swiss Alps shifted from an eastward (Danubian) to a westward (Rhenian) direction during the Late Pliocene. Since then, the High Rhine Valley has acted as the major drainage path during both ice-free and glaciated periods in the past. The Mühlbach formation comprises the patchy remains of carbonate-free sediments that have...

The characterisation and genetic interpretation of glacial (sensu lato) sediment profiles is not always straightforward, especially if observations are limited to the narrow window that a drill core offers. Geotechnical data has proven valuable for, among others, the identification of a glacial sediment component, of previous mechanical loading by...

The Upper Rhine Graben in Central Europe, and notably its depocentre in the Heidelberg Basin, is an archive of complex and long-lasting deposition throughout the Quaternary. A new drill core, 136 m long, from the southern Heidelberg Basin is investigated by characterising sedimentary facies, sediment provenance, as well as analysing the pollen and...

European floodplain environments have been increasingly subject to change under the influence of anthropogenic practices since the Neolithic. The impact of these practices is reflected in adaptations of the natural river landscape, of which deforestation is known to generally increase downstream fine-grained floodplain aggradation. Additionally, hi...

Previous reconstructions conclude that the southern Black Forest temporarily hosted four, presumably interconnected ice caps during the Late Pleistocene. While the chronology of the last deglaciation of this region has been the focus of several studies, the timing of its onset remains largely unknown. To fill this gap, this study examines glacial l...

The double tombolo of Orbetello, in Italy, has formed during the Holocene around an ancient central tombolo. Earlier models consider that its sand barriers formed as sand spits that stretched from the mainland to a coastal island before enlarging seawards. This evolution, however, remains speculative. In order to test these models, we conducted the...

Showing drill cores from ICDP drilling site Lichtenegg (LICH) & Gaisbeuren (GAIS) plus correlation to ICDP drilling site Tannwald (TANN)

This study investigates the intricate relationship between earthquake sources and seismogenic surface ruptures in a complex tectonic setting with active faults in the continental collision zone between the southern Tien Shan and the northern Pamir Mountains in Central Asia. The study focuses on the 2008 Mw 6.6 Nura earthquake along the Pamir Fronta...

The stratigraphy and dating of lacustrine sediments and loess derivatives from Rodderberg, a crater of the East Eifel Volcanic Field in Germany, is based on luminescence dating and incorporates radiocarbon ages, fingerprinting of key tephra layers of the East Eifel Volcanic Field (Rieden Tephra, Hüttenberg Tephra, Laacher See Tephra), pollen strati...

The Alpine region was shaped by repeated glaciations during the Quaternary, which led to the formation of overdeepened valleys and basins. These features today, hidden below the present-day land surface, host multiple stacked and nested glacial sequences and offer valuable insight into the environmental history and geomorphological evolution of the...

Beryllium-10 cosmic-ray exposure (CRE) dating has revolutionized our understanding of glacier fluctuations around the globe. A key prerequisite for the successful application of this dating method is the determination of regional production rates of in situ accumulated 10Be, usually inferred at independently dated calibration sites. Until now, no c...

High-resolution sedimentological and geochronological investigations of paleochannel systems in the Ried Central d'Alsace (northeastern France) allow for the reconstruction of the late glacial and Holocene fluvial evolution of this section of the Upper Rhine alluvial plain. During the Oldest Dryas, the landscape featured a dominant braided Rhine sy...

The Rhine, while separating West and Central Europe, also formed a major corridor not only for the movement of people but also of ideas during the Paleolithic. This volume by a group of researchers working along both sides of the Rhine explores both of these premises.

Showing first result from ICDP bonus drilling site Lichtenegg (LICH) plus correlating outcrop

The structure and age of remains of two ancient walls located in the city of Nan, a former part of the Lanna Kingdom in modern northern Thailand, were investigated. The remains differ in appearance with a well-preserved brick wall present at Mahawong Road (MHW), while an earthwork with a brick reinforcement core is found at Phaya Wat Temple (PWT)....

A 600 cm peat sequence was extracted from the ombrotrophic peat bog Wildseemoor in the northern Black Forest, covering the last ca. 10,000 years thus allowing for identification of potential changes in dust input during the Holocene. Such information is critical to the understanding of past environmental change at the local to supra-regional scale...

Secondary carbonate accumulations are very common in arid and semi-arid soils but are often poorly described and classified. This is the case for queras that are observed in several loess-palaeosol sequences of the Ebro Basin. Micromorphologically, queras are complex pedogenic features basically consisting of infillings of calcified root cells in c...

Beryllium-10 cosmic-ray (CRE) exposure dating has revolutionised our understanding of glacier fluctuations around the globe. A key prerequisite for the successful application of this dating method is a thorough understanding of local production rates of in-situ accumulated 10Be, usually inferred from independently dated regional reference sites. Fo...

A 600-cm peat succession covering the last ca. 10,000 years from Wildseemoor, a perilacustrine ombrotrophic peat bog in the northern Black Forest, offers the opportunity to study Holocene environmental evolution and fire history in the Upper Rhine region. More particularly it is used here for a pilot study 1) dealing with the influence of potential...

To further elucidate the Late Pleistocene glacial history of mid-elevation mountainous regions in Central Europe, 10 Be cosmic-ray exposure (CRE) dating was applied to moraines in the Zastler Tal Valley in the Southern Black Forest. Periods of glacier recession from moraines in this valley began no later than 16 ka, 15 ka, and 13 ka. CRE ages of mo...

This study focusses on dose rate determination in complex settings in two drill cores from the site of Niederweningen, northern Switzerland. A crosscheck with a certified standard material and neutron activation analyses (NAA) reveals an overall good performance of high-resolution gamma spectrometry (HR-GS) when determining dose rate-relevant eleme...

The eastern Rhine Graben Boundary Fault (eastern RGBF) forms the eastern margin of the Upper Rhine Graben (URG), the most seismically active area in the plate interiors of Europe. Despite seismic activity posing a significant threat to the densely populated URG and critical facilities therein, only a few studies have documented the paleoearthquake...

At many times during the Quaternary, when the global sea level was much lower than today (at least 30 m), the Thai-Malay Peninsula was connected by land to the Indonesian archipelago. This now submerged region is known as Sundaland and played a key role in the expansion of flora, fauna, and humans during the Quaternary. However, information regardi...

Urban stormwater contains various micropollutants, such as biocides, which are washed off from facades during wind-driven rain events. Biocides can reach the groundwater via stormwater infiltration systems (SIS), although the soil layer acts as a reactive barrier preventing the leaching of biocides but producing transformation products (TPs). Littl...

Sedimentary records from the Kumtag (also known as Kumtagh) Desert (KMD) in northwestern China are investigated to better understand Late Quaternary paleoenvironmental changes in this hyper-arid region. Presented here are the results of probably the first systematic survey of sedimentary sequences from the KMD, with the chronology determined by the...

Beach ridges are depositional features that allow reconstruction of past sea-level variations, sediment dynamics, and storm activity. However, there are still very few systematic studies focusing on beach ridges available from the Gulf of Thailand. Along the east coast, satellite images provide evidence of beach ridges in the Chanthaburi Province,...

Showing first results from the ICDP drilling in the Tannwald Basin (ICDP site 5068_1)

Sedimentary records containing evidence of past ambient conditions, flora and fauna, and geomorphic processes are the key to understanding and quantifying environmental change. Unfortunately, the preservation potential of deposits is typically low in terrestrial environments, and the resulting fragmentary, puzzle-piece character of continental sedi...

The foreland of Northern Switzerland has been exposed to repeated advances of Alpine glaciers during the Mid- and Late-Pleistocene. While those glacial advances had a lasting impression onto the landscape evolution, constrains of timing, quantity and extent remain sparse. To further the understanding of Quaternary environmental change, a promising...

The multinational pan-alpine research project ICDP - DOVE (International Continental Scientific Drilling Program - Drilling Overdeepened Alpine Valleys) currently investigates overdeepened structures on the northern side of the Alps. The infill of these overdeepened basins potentially provides a geo-archive for the reconstruction of depositional pr...

During the Mid- and Late- Pleistocene, the foreland of northern Switzerland has been exposed to repeated advances of Alpine glaciers. While those glacial advances had a lasting impression onto the evolution of the landscape, quantity, extent and especially timing is still lacking constraint. This is mainly due to a limited source of suitable dating...

The eastern Rhine Graben Boundary Fault (eastern RGBF) forms the eastern margin of the Upper Rhine Graben (URG), the most seismically active area in the plate interiors of Europe. Despite seismic activity posing a significant threat to the densely populated URG and critical facilities therein, only a few studies have documented the paleoearthquake...

Overdeepened structures preserve Pleistocene sediments and can therefore serve as geo-archives for the reconstruction of depositional processes and paleoenvironmental conditions. Overdeepened valleys and basins are recorded over most of the extent of the European Alps and their foreland. The multinational pan-alpine research project ICDP - DOVE (In...

Structure development and porosity evolution are closely related key processes in the formation of soils on loess. In order to better understand changes in soil porosity with time, four loess-palaeosol sequences (LPS) of the Ebro Valley were investigated using micromorphological and multiscalar images of soil thin sections combined with luminescenc...

Megafans are partial cones of river sediment that reach unexpectedly large dimensions, with the largest on Earth being 700 km long. Due to recent developments in space-based observations, global mapping efforts have shown that modern megafan features cover vast landscapes on most continents. This book provides a new inventory of nearly 300 megafans...

Data on how Stone Age communities conceived domestic and utilitarian structures are limited to a few examples of schematic and non-accurate representations of various-sized built spaces. Here, we report the exceptional discovery of the up-to-now oldest realistic plans that have been engraved on stones. These engravings from Jordan and Saudi Arabia...

Overdeepened structures occur in formerly and presently glaciated regions around the earth and are usually referred to as overdeepenings or tunnel valleys. The existence of such troughs has been known for more than a century, and they have been attributed to similar formation processes where subglacial meltwater plays a decisive role. This comparis...

Loess–palaeosol sequences (LPSs) remain poorly investigated in the southern part of the Upper Rhine Graben but represent an important element to understand the environmental context controlling sediment dynamics in the area. A multi-method approach applied to the LPS at Köndringen reveals that its formation occurred during several glacial–interglac...

Operational Report, ICDP Project DOVE, Phase 1

Der Leitfaden fasst die die Kernergebnisse des Projektes NAVEBGO zusammen. In dem Projekt wurden in einem interdisziplinären Ansatz Aspekte von Mobilisierung, Stabilität, Transformation, Ökotoxikologie sowie mögliche natürliche Ersatzstoffe von Bioziden untersucht. In soziologischen Studien wurden Wahrnehmungen und Praktiken relevanter Akteur:innen...

Ce guide résume les résultats clés du projet NAVEBGO. Dans le cadre de ce projet, les aspects de la mobilisation, de la stabilité, de la transformation, de l'écotoxicologie ainsi que les éventuels substituts naturels des biocides ont été étudiés dans une approche interdisciplinaire. Des études sociologiques ont examiné les perceptions et les pratiq...

Biocides used in paints and renders prevent algae and fungi growth but can wash off during wind-driven rain and enter urban environments. Retention ponds represent part of stormwater management that retain water and partly pollutants. However, it is poorly understood which percentage of biocides leached from facades reaches a pond and how efficient...

Quaternary environments on the Arabian Peninsula shifted between pronounced arid conditions and phases of increased rainfall, which had a profound impact on Earth surface processes. However, while aeolian sediment dynamics are reasonably well understood, there is a lack of knowledge with regard to variability in the fluvial systems. Presented here...

The sedimentary infill of glacially overdeepened valleys (i.e., structures eroded below the fluvial base level) is an excellent but yet underexplored archive with regard to the age, extent, and nature of past glaciations. The ICDP project DOVE (Drilling Overdeepened Alpine Valleys) Phase 1 investigates a series of drill cores from glacially overdee...

Während des Spätpleistozäns waren die höchste Erhebung des Schwarzwaldes, der Feldberg (1493 m ü. NHN) und die umliegende Region zeitweise von einer Eiskappe und ihren Auslassgletschern bedeckt. Während der darauffolgenden Deglaziation zerfiel die Eiskappe zunächst in Talgletscher und dann in einzelne Kargletscher. Über den zeitlichen Ablauf der le...

Sedimentabfolgen, die Spuren vergangener Umweltbedingungen, von Flora und Fauna, sowie von landschaftsformenden Prozessen enthalten, sind einer der Schlüssel zum Verständnis und zur Bezifferung von Klima- und Umweltwandel. Allerdings ist das Erhaltungspotenzial von Ablagerungen auf dem Festland häufig gering, was zu einem nur lückenhaften Muster vo...

The French Upper Rhine alluvial plain is characterized by a complex system of paleochannels inherited from Late Glacial to Holocene fluvial dynamics of the Rhine and Ill river systems, among other smaller rivers. These paleochannels represent valuable archives for understanding and reconstructing the fluvial and landscape evolution of the area. How...

During the Middle and Late Pleistocene, the northern foreland of the Swiss Alps has seen multiple glacial advances. Constraints of numerical dating, especially for the older advances, have left a chronological void. Mainly due to a limited source of suitable dating techniques and a seemingly upper age limit of quartz OSL ages at about 200 ka, the r...

Loess–palaeosol sequences (LPSs) are key archives for the reconstruction of Quaternary environmental conditions, but there is a lack of investigated records from the southern Upper Rhine Graben (southwestern Germany). To close this gap, a LPS at Bahlingen-Schönenberg was investigated at high resolution using a multi-method approach. Infrared stimul...

While timing and ice extent of the last glacial maximum are generally well known, the courses of earlier glaciations have remained poorly constrained, with one of the main reasons being the scarcity of sedimentary archives. This study introduces a new palaeolake record from a Mid-Pleistocene glaciofluvial channel system in the Lower Aare Valley (No...

A special type of biogenic secondary carbonates (queras) are commonly found in Loess-paleosol sequences in arid and semiarid environments. The analyses of the isotopic composition of carbon (δ13Ccarb) and oxygen (δ18Ocarb) may help to infer the paleovegetation and the temperatures of the environment where these accumulations formed (Zamanian et al....

The Lanna group is a traditional ceramic production style from Southeast Asia, with several kiln sites found distributed all over present northern Thailand. However, its origin and development are considered controversial and chronological constraints are scarce. Applied here are radiocarbon dating to charcoal remains and luminescence dating to cer...

Since pioneering work in the 19th century, multiple studies have been undertaken on the Late Pleistocene glaciation of the southern Black Forest. They conclude that an about 1000 km2-large ice cap and its outlet glaciers temporarily covered the highest summit of the Black Forest, Feldberg (1493 m above sea-level), and the surrounding region. Multip...

Urban swales collect stormwater runoff containing micropollutants such as biocides washed off from facades during wind driven rain. Although swales retain contaminants, they might eventually reach groundwater through soil. However, there is little data available of biocide occurrence in urban swale sediment. In this study, we measured the biocide e...

Understanding the frequency of high energy storm and tsunami events is crucial for apprehending the vulnerability of coastal communities. Identifying and dating sedimentary evidence deposited by such high energy events can assist in the planning and installation of suitable protection measurements. The Andaman Sea coast of Thailand is particularly...

The development of coastal dunes is linked to environmental controls such as sea-level variability, climatic conditions, and coastal morphology. Understanding the spatial and temporal variations of dunes is crucial for predicting how coastal landscapes may react to future climate changes and sea-level rise. However, there are very few detailed stud...

The timing and extent of individual Pleistocene glaciations, especially before the last glacial maximum (LGM), are poorly constrained despite their severe environmental and geomorphic impacts. Our primary goals are the identification of signatures of individual glaciations, the connection of related sediment bodies, and the reconstruction of the re...