record including a succession of at least three warm climatic intervals in
super-position (
Fig. 9
) is unique for the area and provides a great
potential for (i) solving pending problems of the stratigraphy of the
Saalian complex, and, (ii) disentangling Saalian climatic variability in
this part of Europe with high-resolution multiproxy approaches.
Although the cell count data have to be treated with some caution,
because no contamination control was employed during drilling, the
general decrease of cell abundance with depth as well as variations,
which follow small-scale lithological changes (
Figs. 6, 13
) can be seen
as good indicators for the existence of an active microbial community
in these sediments. Future drilling operations with appropriate
contamination control and sampling strategies would allow for a
more detailed investigation of this subsurface ecosystem. Below the
lake sediments, at 84
–85.5 m depth, a country rock breccia (mainly
phyllite with quartz) was recovered, with some lapilli and volcanic
bombs of identical petrological composition as the bombs from the
Mýtina exploratory trench. Hence, the Mýtina trench tuff
–tephra
deposits as far as 1500 m from the
Železná hůrka volcano most
probably originated from the Mýtina maar eruption (
Fig. 10
–12
).
Indications for a presently active magma intrusion from lithospheric
mantle into the crust beneath the eastern part of the Cheb Basin
(marked by yellow ellipse in
Fig. 1
) have been published by
Bräuer et al.
(2005, 2008a, b)
. Their
findings are result of repeated annual samplings
of free gas phase in mineral water springs and mofettes. Between 1993
and 2005 an increase of mantle-derived helium has been observed
(
Bräuer et al., 2008a, b
). The
3
He/
4
He ratios are clearly higher than in
the Eifel area and the Massif Central (
Fig. 1
, inset map), the two classical
European regions for Quaternary maar eruptions. The area of hidden
magmatic and earthquake swarm activity (with a magnitude of
possibly up to 5) at the NE and E part of the Cheb Basin is located
only ca. 20
–30 km north of the Mýtina maar. Because of the indications
to presently active magmatic process, a potential future hazard
(phreatomagmatic eruption) for that area cannot be excluded (
Fig. 1
,
yellow ellipse). These
findings are unique for Central and Western
Europe (
Lorenz, 2007
) and shed new light on the reconstruction of
palaeovolcanic evolution of the Mýtina maar. This comprehensive pilot
study argues for detailed future operations considering palaeovolcanic
evolution, palaeoclimate, deep biosphere, and hazard potential.
Acknowledgements
This research is supported by the German Science Foundation (KA
902/11, KR 1906/10) and GFZ, and partly by the Grant Agency of the
Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (IAA300460602). Gratitude
is to R. Naumann and P. Dulski (both at the GFZ) for their analytical
support (XRF, ICP-MS). We thank Ina Neugebauer, Lucas Kämpf (both
TU Dresden), Maria Wahle (EMA University of Greifswald) and Nicole
Weiske (FU Berlin) for assisting of sampling, core description and
technical work, as well as Václav Polák (IG ASCR Prague) and Marek
Sp
ěšný (Charles University, Prague) for participation in geophysical
and geodetic surveys. We appreciate detailed comments of M.Pirrung
and one anonymous reviewer that helped us in improving the
manuscript. We also appreciate the handling editor Joan Marti for
the decision in favour of the complex character of the publication.
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