ABSTRACT: Sedimentological, magnetic and geochemical proxies for Holocene climate change and paleoseismology from marine anoxic inlet sediments.

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Abstract

Sediments deposited in anoxic basins are not bioturbated and thus hold high temporal resolution proxy recordings of climate and other physical controls. This paper focuses on the inner basin of Effingham Inlet on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada, a 120m deep fiord basin restricted from the open ocean by a 46m deep sill. Fifteen years of oceanographic monitoring have helped establish the physical and sedimentary processes at play. Freeze cores, piston cores, and especially the 40 m long MD02-2494 core hold a15 ka record of Late Pleistocene deglaciation, relative sea level change, Holocene climate and paleoseismology, revealed by sedimentological, magnetic and geochemical analysis. The age model is established using terrestrial 14C dates complemented by varve counting and paleomagnetic secular variation correlations. Annual laminations are formed of spring/summer diatom deposits following algal blooms and dominantly- winter deposits of clastics. These sediments provide proxies of Holocene weather with annual resolution. There are several episodes of rapid regime change from high seasonality warm climate to low seasonality wet-cold climate. Interspersed with the the annual laminations, there are two types of massive deposits: "homogenites" formed by remixing of suspended sediments by bottom-hugging currents, and "seismites" formed by mass wasting events associated with ground shaking. Magnetically, both the laminations and homogenites feature similar single-domain magnetic grains, while the seismites feature larger magnetic grains with multi-domain signatures, thus providing a simple tool for distinguishing the two visually similar deposit types. Homogenites, which result from La Nina-like oceanic conditions, first appear in core MD02- 2494 approximately 8 ka and have been increasing in frequency ever since.

Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology