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Late Holocene Lake Sedimentology and Climate Change in Southern Alberta, Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Celina Campbell
Celina Campbell*
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, T6G-2H4, Canada
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Abstract

Climatic changes in southern Alberta, Canada, for the past 4000 yr are reflected in a high-resolution record of lake sediment grain size. The proposed mechanism for this response is that outflow discharge removes fine-grained sediments, but increasingly fine sediments are retained and deposited as streamflow declines. At the same time, coarse sediments are brought in by high discharge entering the lake. The net effect of these two processes is to leave coarse, clay-deficient sediments during times of high streamflow and clay-rich sediments during times of low flow. The grain-size record from Pine Lake reflects historic climate fluctuations, as well as prehistoric fluctuations including the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Grain size at this site provides a simple, economical, and nonbiologically mediated paleoclimate proxy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , January 1998 , pp. 96 - 101
Copyright
University of Washington

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