Palpa-Nasca Basin, Northern Atacama Desert, Peru
Reference
Unkel, I., Kadereit, A., Machtle, B., Eitel, B., Kromer, B., Wagner, G. and Wacker, L. 2007. Dating methods and geomorphic evidence of paleoenvironmental changes at the eastern margin of the South Peruvian coastal desert (14°30'S) before and during the Little Ice Age. Quaternary International 175: 3-28.
Reference
Unkel, I., Kadereit, A., Machtle, B., Eitel, B., Kromer, B., Wagner, G. and Wacker, L. 2007. Dating methods and geomorphic evidence of paleoenvironmental changes at the eastern margin of the South Peruvian coastal desert (14°30'S) before and during the Little Ice Age. Quaternary International 175: 3-28.
Description
Working in the hyper-arid zone of the northern Atacama Desert of Peru between Pisco/Ica and Nazca/San Juan (~14.3°S, 75.3°W), Unkel et al. employed "geomorphological field-work" and "chronometric analyses" -- consisting of conventional 14C-dating of charcoal, wood and root samples and optical-stimulated luminescence dating of feldspar and quartz -- while investigating "alluvial archives and debris flow deposits." This work, together with that of others, indicated the existence of a period of "fluvial silence" for "the time of the 9th-13th centuries," due to "increased aridification," which they associated with the Medieval Warm Period (~AD 800-1250).