Vegetation and climate dynamics of southern Chile during the past 50,000 years: results of ODP Site 1233 pollen analysis

High-resolution pollen data from ODP Site 1233 (41°0.005S, 74°26.992W, 838 m water depth) provide a continuous, chronostratigraphically controlled ∼50,000-yr record of regional changes in vegetation from temperate South America. Deposited ∼38 km west of the transition from northern, summer-green, lowland forest to southern evergreen rain forest, the 135 m core documents the comparatively brief Holocene development of thermophilous vegetation (Lowland Deciduous Beech Forest and Valdivian Evergreen Forest), and the expansion of glacial, subantarctic vegetation (North Patagonian Evergreen Forest-Subantarctic Parkland) during Marine Isotope State (MIS) 2 and 3. Systematic variability in these terrestrial climate proxies that reflect latitudinal movement of the southern westerlies is mirrored in co-eval ocean conditions inferred from radiolaria census data and in Antarctic climate records.