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Little Ice Age to modern lake-level fluctuations from Ferguson's Gulf, Lake Turkana, Kenya, based on sedimentology and ostracod assemblages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2021

Catherine C. Beck Open the ORCID record for Catherine C. Beck [Opens in a new window] ,
Craig S. Feibel ,
Richard A. Mortlock ,
Rhonda L. Quinn  and
James D. Wright
Catherine C. Beck*
Affiliation:
Geosciences Department, Hamilton College, Clinton, New York13323, USA
Craig S. Feibel
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Rutgers University, Busch Campus, Piscataway, New Jersey08854, USA Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, Douglass Campus, New Brunswick, New Jersey08901, USA
Richard A. Mortlock
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Rutgers University, Busch Campus, Piscataway, New Jersey08854, USA
Rhonda L. Quinn
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Rutgers University, Busch Campus, Piscataway, New Jersey08854, USA Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey07079, USA
James D. Wright
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Rutgers University, Busch Campus, Piscataway, New Jersey08854, USA
*
*Corresponding author at: Email address: ccbeck@hamilton.edu (C.C. Beck).
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Abstract

Lacustrine sedimentary records and the proxies contained within them are valuable archives of past climate. However, the resolution of these records is frequently coarse or contains a high degree of uncertainty, making it difficult to resolve how climatic variability impacts the ecosystems on which humans depend. The goal of this study is to couple recent sediment cores sampled at centimeter-scale resolution with paleo- and historical information about lake levels to document how changes in the paleoenvironment impact the paleoecology of a rift basin lake. We present multiproxy data from three short cores collected from Ferguson's Gulf (FG), a shallow embayment connected to the western shore of Lake Turkana, Kenya. Five distinct biozones were interpreted on the basis of ostracods and geochemistry (δ18O, δ13C, and major elements), spanning the Little Ice Age (LIA) to the modern. Overall, ostracod total abundance and assemblage diversity decreased up-core, with the largest total abundance and genera diversity occurring during the LIA. This fits with regional datasets that indicate the Eastern Branch of the East African Rift System was wetter during the LIA than it is today. This also suggests that human impact in and around Lake Turkana has weakened the resiliency of the ecosystems in FG.

Keywords

OstracodsLake TurkanaStable isotopesPaleolimnologyLimnologyLittle Ice Age
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 101 , May 2021 , pp. 129 - 142
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Copyright
Copyright © University of Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press, 2021

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