Climate‐modulated accumulation and erosion of sediments in the Rodderberg crater basin for the last 439 ka (East Eifel Volcanic Field, Germany)

ABSTRACT Glacial/interglacial climate cycles since marine isotope stage (MIS) 12 influenced the discontinuous and 73 m‐long sediment record from the volcanic crater of Rodderberg in the East Eifel Volcanic Field, Germany. High‐resolution grain size and geochemical data have been valued by numerical dating techniques (radiocarbon and luminescence dating, tephrochronology), providing an environmental reconstruction since the Middle Pleistocene (439 ka). The observed hydroclimatic variability, along with silting‐up of the crater basin, significantly influenced depositional processes. This results in the formation of laminated, sand‐rich, and organic‐rich sediments during interglacial periods, as well as layered, silt‐rich minerogenic loess derivatives during glacial periods. According to chronology, the crater basin desiccated during MIS 8 and MIS 5, causing erosion of the interglacials related to MIS 9 and MIS 5e. The combined evidence over five glacial/interglacial cycles suggests a depositional evolution from a deep crater lake during MIS 12–10, desiccation during MIS 8 with erosion of MIS 9, a shallow lake for MIS 7, and a desiccating wetland during MIS 6, followed by deposition of loess (MIS 6‐2) and a Holocene soil (MIS 1).