Page 15 - Osor v fokusu znanosti

Submerged Landscapes
of the Lošinj Channel

Dea Brunović, Slobodan Miko, Ozren Hasan, and Nikolina Ilijanić 2025
Invited Lecture
November

Abstract Vast coastal areas were exposed during periods of significantly
lower sea levels associated with Quaternary glacial periods. Following the
Last Glaciation,theseenvironmentsgot submergedasthesealevelroseto its 4–5
present-dayposition.Comprehensiveresearch ofthesubmergedlandscapes
of the eastern Adriatic has been conducted within the scope of the Croat- Koper,
ian Science Foundation project ‘Lost Lake Landscapes of the Eastern Adriatic
Shelf’ (LoLADRIA). By application of the remote sensing techniques (multi- •
beam echosounder and sub-bottom profiler) and multi-proxy sediment core
analysis, we reconstructed the past environments that existed in the Lošinj Spotlight
Channel during the last 100,000 years. Our findings revealed the repetition
of fluvial, lacustrine and marine sedimentation, reflecting the Quaternary
glacial and interglacial phases. Notably, the existence of a karstified sill be-
tween the Lošinj Channel and Kvarnerić Bay at a depth of 50 m enabled
palaeoenvironmental changes in concert with the sea-level fluctuations. The Scientific
reconstructionoftheQuaternarylandscapeevolutionisnotonlyessentialfor
the assessment of regional sea levels and climate, but also has significant im- the
plications for the understanding of prehistoric human migration pathways
and activities along the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. These landscapes in
provided crucial resources for the prehistoric communities that inhabited Osor
the region, making this research valuable for examining how populations in
the past interacted with and adapted to changing environmental conditions
throughout the Pleistocene and Holocene.
Keywords submerged landscapes, acoustic methods, sediment cores, Qua-
ternary, Adriatic Sea

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