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The Kalahari features a long-lived lacustrine system which may exist since the Early Pleistocene. The emergence of an extant cichlid fish radiation from this (palaeo-) lake during the Middle Pleistocene indicates an ancient lake character. The early history of the system remains speculative, but it is established that lake extensions matching modern Lake Victoria in size have occurred during the Late Pleistocene. It has been assumed that the hydrographical dynamics chiefly depended on the inflow from the Okavango River and thus on ITCZ-controlled precipitation. Our studies, which focused the hydromorphological and palaeolimnological development of the Makgadikgadi Basin during the last 50 ka, suggest that from c. 46-16 ka it did not receive water from the Okavango River but from palaeo-rivers located in the northern and south-western catchment. A northward shift of the winter rainfall zone during the Last Glacial Maximum sustained a high lake level for a period of c. 6 ka. During Heinrich Event 1 (17-16 ka) the lake probably desiccated abruptly and completely. Higher lake levels, controlled by water from the Okavango river system, were reached again during the Holocene before the lake dried up in the middle of the last millennium.
Author(s): Riedel F, Henderson ACG, Heussner KU, Kaufmann G, Kossler A, Leipe C, Shemang E, Taft L
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Hydrobiologia
Year: 2014
Volume: 739
Issue: 1
Pages: 25-53
Print publication date: 01/11/2014
Online publication date: 28/08/2013
Acceptance date: 26/07/2013
ISSN (print): 0018-8158
ISSN (electronic): 1573-5117
Publisher: Springer
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10750-013-1647-x
DOI: 10.1007/s10750-013-1647-x
Notes: Speciation in ancient lakes, 6.
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