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Record of the Sedimentary Dynamics and Climatic Variability Within the Sedimentary Filling of Mchiguig Wetland During the Late Holocene: Central Tunisia – Astronomic, Atmospheric, and Oceanographic Forces

Record of the Sedimentary Dynamics and Climatic Variability Within the Sedimentary Filling of Mchiguig Wetland During the Late Holocene: Central Tunisia – Astronomic, Atmospheric, and Oceanographic Forces

Elhoucine Essefi (University of Gabes, Tunisia)
Copyright: © 2022 |Pages: 15
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-9498-8.ch015
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Abstract

This work aimed to study the cyclicity of the geochemical chemical parameters and the carbonate percentages along a 59 cm core from the sebkha of Mchiguig, Central Tunisia. In fact, from the bottom upwards, six climatic phases were recorded including the Warming Present (Great Acceleration), the Late Little Ice Age (Anthropocene), the Early Little Ice Age, the Medieval Climatic Anomaly, the Dark Age, and the Roman Warm Period. In fact, the spectral analysis of the studied parameters visualized many cycles. Those cycles are related to sun activity, oceanographic, and atmospheric factors. Solar activity generated 500 yr cycles; however, the oceanographic circulation generated other cycles of 1500 yr and 700-800 yr. The 1500 yr cycle may be the result of the solar activity and NAO-like circulation.
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Study Area

Located at the crossroads between three governorates of Sfax, Kairouan and Sidi Bouzid, central Tunisia, the Sebkha of Mchiguig (also called sebkha Sidi Dhaher) is a NNE-SSW oriented depression (Fig.1b). It enormously reserves visible salt flush with the surface of the sebkha (Essefi et al., 2020). Located east of the Goubrar sheet between the North and Fatnassa bled Sidi Dhaher south, the Mchiguig sebkha approximately occupies a surface of 7 Km2 along 13 km length and 500 m wide. Along the periphery of its watershed, a well-developed hydrographic network does not reach the sebkha (Fig.1b), due to weak rain in central Tunisia. However, extreme flooding events do reach the outlet in the playa and feed the surface by amounts of detritic sediment. In terms of topography, its background has an approximate altitude of 113-114m, whereas the surrounding watershed approximately reaches the attitude of 500 m. Also, the watershed is marked by a fragile lihtology candidate to be dissolved by the extended hydrographic network. The hydrological balance between evaporation reaching the climax in July and a precipitation barely exceeding 30 mm/month enhances the evaporation and the precipitation of salt. Except some geoeconomics studies (Essefi et al., 2020), no paleoclimatic study had investigated the sedimentary filing of this wetland.

Figure 1.

Study area of sebkha Mchiguig: (a) Location of sebkha Mchiguig, (b) (Smida 2006)

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