Das Projekt "Soil and Alpine landscape evolution since the Lateglacial and early/mid Holocene in Val di Sole (Trentino, Italy)" wird vom Umweltbundesamt gefördert und von Universität Zürich, Geographisches Institut durchgeführt. Fast climate changes have occurred in the Lateglacial and early Holocene period. The investigation of this time span therefore gives precise insight into the sensitivity of Alpine areas regarding fast changing environmental conditions. The investigation generally focuses at dating selected Alpine sites of distinct landform surfaces with several absolute and relative methods with the aim to establish an absolute chronology of surfaces, to correlate several dating methods and to improve every ones. The investigation area is in Trentino (Northern Italy). Special emphasis is given to the Lateglacial and early Holocene period. We use several methods (absolute and relative techniques) for dating. A main focus is addressed to moraines and surfaces using soils as an indicator of landscape history. Moraines will be suitable sites for soil investigations where soil chemical and mineralogical techniques can be compared to the absolute age dating techniques. Special aims of the work will be: - 10Be in soil as an age indicator (developing method on Trentino soils and in other sites (e.g. Swiss Alps)) - Dating with 14C and charcoal analyses - Deciphering landscape history in small catchments in Val di Sole using relative and absolute dating techniques. A cross-check of exposure dating, radiocarbon ages and relative methods will allow an extended interpretation, mutual control of the applied methods and a more accurate estimate of possible error sources. A so-calibrated methodology may later also be applied on other characteristic cold-mountain deposits such as debris flows or rock-fall deposits. The whole set of newly developed dating methodologies opens most interesting perspectives for chronological work about late-glacial and Holocene landscape evolution in climate-sensitive high-mountain areas.