Paleofire records are valuable to our understanding of fire, climate, and human-land interaction in postglacial, quaternary environmental history. Macroscopic and microscopic charcoal concentrations in peat records are established paleofire proxies. During a fire, charcoal particles undergo primary deposition via aeolian fallout, with size decreasing over distance (Whitlock, C., & Larsen, C., 2002). The concentration and deposition rate provide information on the timing, intensity, patterns, and proximity of the fires to the deposition site. _x000D_
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Studying fire proxies in the Ríofrío sedimentary peat record (43.037°N, 4.697 W°, 1740 MASL; Vega de Liébana, Cantabria) could explain favorable environmental or climate conditions that propagated fires in the Cantabrian massifs._x000D_
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Methods based on counting and size classification of particulate charcoal, only imply the intensity and frequency of fires. To understand environmental conditions in which those fires burned, it is important to determine what kind of biomass was burning. Charcoal studies since 1998 contain either methods of morphology or morphometry: qualitative particle identity classification (e.g., Enache and Cumming (2006), Mustaphi and Pisaric (2014) or length:width ratio (e.g., Umbanhowar and McGrath, 1998) calculations respectively. Mustaphi and Pisaric (2014) presents 27 classifications for charcoal morphologies, based on shape and texture, associated with specific types of biomass. Through a meta-analysis of 83 papers that cite this study, some apply this classification directly while others reduce it to larger categories. Some use fewer, entirely different classifications and the rest refer to the paper but only measure length:width ratios for simplicity’s sake. _x000D_
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For the Ríofrío record, we combined these approaches: a 27 classifications method including size classes along with length:width ratios. The result will be a 20ky record of concentrations for total particulate charcoal and their morphotypes._x000D_
Ashley Braunthal (1), Albert Pèlachs Mañosa (1), Raquel Cunill Artigas (1)
1 Departament de Geografia – Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
ID Abstract: 447