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CONGO BASIN PEATLANDS AS A BASELINE RECORD FOR PAST HYDROLOGY AND CLIMATE
  • Christopher Kiahtipes,
  • Enno Schefuß
Christopher Kiahtipes
University of South Florida, Tampa

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Enno Schefuß
Universität Bremen
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Abstract

Recent satellite mapping and coring of the peatland complex of the Congo Basin’s Couvette Centrale region underscores the global significance of this area. Freshwater tropical peatlands in the Congo Basin make up one of Earth’s largest terrestrial carbon sinks which forms an important nexus between global climate, biogeochemical cycling, and biodiversity. These peatlands are also a unique record of past climates, containing microfossil and geochemical proxies documenting past climatic and hydrological conditions in the region, yet there are no published studies of these peatland deposits south of the Congo River in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Recent coring and radiocarbon dating of peatland core sequences collected from the Couvette Centrale and Mai Ndombe regions of DRC provides new data on the timing of peatland establishment in the Congo Basin. Furthermore, preliminary results of palynological and isotope geochemical analysis shed light on the spatial and temporal variability in regional rainfall regimes for these regions.