GEOLOGICA CARPATHICA, DECEMBER 2010, 61, 6, 513—533 doi: 10.2478/v10096-010-0032-1 Paleofloristic and paleofaunistic analysis of Dudváh River oxbow and implication for Late Holocene paleoenvironmental development of the Žitný ostrov Island (SW Slovakia) PETER PIŠÚT1, EVA BŘÍZOVÁ2, TOMÁŠ ČEJKA3 and RADOVAN PIPÍK4 1Department of Physical Geography and Geoecology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, Mlynská dolina, 842 15 Bratislava 4, Slovak Republic;
[email protected] 2Czech Geological Survey, Klárov 131/3, 118 21 Prague 1, Czech Republic;
[email protected] 3Institute of Zoology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, 845 06 Bratislava 4, Slovak Republic;
[email protected] 4Geological Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Ďumbierska 1, 974 01 Banská Bystrica, Slovak Republic;
[email protected] (Manuscript received February 18, 2010; accepted in revised form October 13, 2010) Abstract: Žitný ostrov, the largest island of the Danube River (SW Slovakia) gained its present shape in the Neoholocene period. As a result of increased flood and geomorphological Danube river activity dated to 1378—1528 AD, the Lower Dudváh River was abandoned and its alluvium became a part of the Žitný ostrov. Study of a Dudváh terrestrialized paleomeander by means of pollen and macrofossil analysis provides new information about the paleoenvironments of the Danubian Plain. The meander under study was cut-off during the Sub-Boreal period when the land was mostly covered by oak-dominated mixed forest with a notable high frequency of Fagus and Abies. In low-lying depressions, Alnus glutinosa formed typical alder carrs. The largest decline of the mixed forest occurred during the Sub-Atlantic period.