In this paper a part of a new multi-proxy results obtained from the Kotoń landslide fen deposits (the Beskid Makowski Mountains, the Outer Western Carpathians, S Poland), including loss on ignition analysis, plant macrofossil analysis and radiocarbon dating is presented. The aim of the study was to verify whether the reconstructed local palaeoecological stages of the Kotoń fen development could be correlated with the Bølling-Older Dryas-Allerød sequence and to verify whether the rarely recognised short GI-1d/Older Dryas climate cooling affected the regional and local palaeoecological record of the Kotoń deposits. Results showed that four palaeoecological stages of development (poor-in-vegetation waterbody, waterbody with aquatic succession, calcareous extremely rich fen and moderately rich fen) determined for the Kotoń landslide fen deposits between ca. 14,600–13,500 cal BP stay in agreement with the earlier pollen division of the Kotoń deposits and with the extraregional chronology of the Greenland ice cores. The influence of GI-1d/Older Dryas climate cooling on the surrounding and regional vegetation was recognised for the deposits of Kotoń and other localities in a form of open-space habitats with herbs, shrubs and sparse tree stands, e.g. steppe-tundra, reflecting the cold and dry climatic conditions. In case of local vegetation and palaeohydrological changes, the Older Dyas climatic oscillation was recorded as a shallowing of the existing palaeo-waterbodies. Although for other localities this process was attributed to the dry climatic conditions, in case of Kotoń site more detail multi-proxy research is necessary to distinguish the climatic impact from the autogenic succession.

In the sequences of landslide fen (mire) deposits of the Polish Western Carpathians, Late Glacial-Holocene paleoenvironmental changes were recorded. Downpours and/or continuous rains cyclically repeated during phases of climate humidity growth, causing supplies of mineral material to the minerogenic mires. In effect, illuvial or mineral horizons were formed in landslide fen deposits, as well as mineral covers overly fens in some sites. Sedimentological records reflect various, overlapping factors, as climatic changes, human activity (e.g. accelerating erosion), as well the specificity of the sedimentary environment in each studied landslide fens. The reconstruction and interpretation of the paleoenvironmental changes recorded in landslide fen sediments must be supported by multiproxy analysis of the sequences using pollen, lithological (loss on ignition, grain size and petrography) analyses of samples accurately dated by numerous radiocarbon (14C) dates.