Vegetation history and climate changes in West Equatorial Africa during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene, based on a marine pollen diagram from the Congo fan

Palynological investigation of the marine core, GeoB 1008-3, from near the mouth of the Congo river (6°35.6S/10°19.1E), provides information about the changes in vegetation and climate in West Equatorial Africa during the last 190 ka. The pollen diagram is divided into zones 1–6 which are considered to correspond in time with the marine isotope stages 1–6. Oscillations in temperature and moisture are indicated during the cold stage 6. During stage 5, two cooler periods (5d and 5b) can be shown with an expansion of Podocarpus forests to lower elevations on the expense of lowland rain forest. Extended mangrove swamps existed along the coast in times of high sea level (stages 5 and 1).