Limnogeological Reconstruction of Late Quaternary Climate and Environment of Kamchatka

Funding

BMBF (2006-2009)

Russian Partners

Dr. Oleg Dirksen & Dr. Veronika Dirksen
Tephra Stratigraphy & Palynology
Institute of Volcanology and Seismology of the  
Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskkij, Russian Federation

Background 

In summer 2007, limnogeological field studies were carried out on Kamchatka under the umbrella of the joint Russian-German project KALMAR (Kurile-Kamchatka and Aleutian Marginal Sea-Island Arc Systems: Geodynamic and Climate Interaction in Space and Time“, which mainly deals with tectonic and volcanic processes at the active continental margin of the NW Pacific realm. Another major aspect is the palaeoenvironmental development of the region, inferred from palaeoceanography and land records. The project is funded by the BMBF. The limnogeological study takes place in the scope of subproject TP5 “Limnogeological Reconstruction of the late Quaternary Climate and Environment of Kamchatka (Diekmann & Hubberten).

The project is devoted to the inference of Holocene climate variability obtained from lake-sediment records. Through the application of a palaeolimnological multi-proxy approach on lacustrine sediment cores, insights into the changes of the Kamchatka land climate are anticipated. The research programme will be based on sedimentological and geochemical data and pollen analyses, which document the variability of climate-related detrital sediment fluxes, lake-level oscillations, changes in aquatic biological productivity, as well as vegetation dynamics around the lake. Special emphasis is put forward on the evaluation of stable-isotope signals in diatoms, which can be used as a palaeothermometer of former surface-water temperatures. Age assignments of the sediment records will be deduced from radiocarbon stratigraphy and the recognition of volcaniclastic marker beds.  

In cooperation with another palaeooceanographic subproject of KALMAR, land-ocean linkages between Kamchatka and the Northwest Pacific will be investigated and compared with the climate development of the neighbouring continental regions of eastern Eurasia. The overall goal is to explore teleconnections and climate see saws between the North Atlantic, the monsoon-affected low-latitude regions of Asia, and the northern Pacific realm, which are either dictated by oceanographic processes (global ocean conveyor) and/or atmospheric oscillations (e.g. NAO, PO, ENSO).    

The field campaign “KALMAR 2007“ took place in September 2007 at six lakes in central Kamchatka and accomplished the following tasks:

• Bathymetric surveys provided the basis for sediment-core retrieval at selected sites.

• Water and plankton sampling for the inference of modern limnoecological conditions.

• Geomorphological and geological survey of the surrounding land area, to assess ancient landscape development.

• Evaluation of terrestrial peat and ash sections.

• Sampling of lake-bottom surface sediments, in order to infer the present spatial variability of the sedimentory inventory and the lacustrine depositional environment.

• Retrieval of long sediment cores by piston coring for later palaeolimnological proxy studies. First age data indicate the time coverage of the entire Holocene.