Abstract
We reviewed the results of previous studies on paleoclimate and paleoenvironment in and around the Japanese Islands during the Last Interglacial period. Sediment cores recovered from deep-sea settings around the Japanese Islands provide valuable information in understanding the ocean paleoenvironment and age framework since marine isotope stage 6. Analyses of pollen, diatoms, and total organic carbon in lake sediments have contributed to clarifying the land climate in detail, in combination with age constraints provided by tephra marker beds. Great progress has been made in tephra stratigraphy and the identification of tephra marker beds, which provide the key to correlating land and marine data, as shown in the case studies on Lake Biwa and the Takano Formation. Because several widespread tephra marker beds are 90 to 100 ka in age, it is possible to reconstruct the paleoclimate of this period at high resolution, both temporally and spatially, integrating local and regional environmental information for both land and marine settings. Such results may be important in the near future for local and global climate forecasting.
