CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Author : Engstrom, D.R.
Date : 1983
Title : Chemical stratigraphy of lake sediments as a record of environmental change
Publication : Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Minnesota
Issue :
Page(s) :
Abstract
This dissertation is composed of three separate papers that have as their common focus the historical reconstruction of environmental change from the chemical stratigraphy of Holocene lake sediments. In these studies the elemental composition of lake cores is determined following fractionation of the sediments into authigenic and allogenic constituents. Interpretation of the chemical data is supported by additional analyses of fossil pollen, diatoms, sedimentary pigments, and humic materials. The first chapter represents a regional study of postglacial vegetational change and soil development in Labrador, Canada, and the second is a short-core study of the recent cultural eutrophication of a lake in Vermont. These distinctly different projects provide complimentary information on the utility of sediment geochemistry in paleoecology. In oligotrophic lakes, such as those of Labrador, the primary signal represented in the sediments is the composition of catchment soils. Lake eutrophication, on the other hand, can produce internal modification of sediment composition that may be read from chemical stratigraphy as a history of limnological development, as shown by the Vermont research. The final chapter is a critical review of geochemical techniques and interpretations as applied to lake sediments and environmental history. Results from the Labrador and Vermont chapters are integrated with recent experimental studies of sediment-water interactions and other paleolimnological investigations of chemical stratigraphy from European and North American sites.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology