Radioisotopic evidence of perturbations of recent sedimentary record in lakes: a word of caution for climate studies

✍ Scribed by Janusz Dominik; Jean-Luc Loizeau; Daniel Span

• Book ID: 104658531
• Publisher: Springer-Verlag
• Year: 1992
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 909 KB
• Volume: 6
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0930-7575
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00193526

✦ Synopsis

The rate of climatic change estimated from the gradient of signals recorded in lake sediments may be erroneous if post-depositional perturbations are overlooked. A smear out of a pulse signal, over a variable thickness of core section, due to physical or biological mixing, is a well known phenomena. Much less attention is paid to a possible overestimation of the rate of change when a part of record is missing due to an erosion event. In this paper we show a few examples of recent lake sediment perturbations and the resulting distortions in the time scale, as documented by shortlived radionuclides.