CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
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Author : Gilbert, R.; and Church, M.
Date : 1983
Title : Contemporary sedimentary environments on Baffin Island: reconnaissance of lakes on Cumberland Peninsula
Publication : Arctic and Alpine Research
Issue : 15(3):
Page(s) : 321-332
Abstract
Studies were made of four lakes receiving significant quantities of glacial sediment and of five lakes receiving no glacial sediment. All waters contain less than 10 mg/l dissolved sediment, with highest values in the glacial lakes where ion scavenging can occur from fine suspended sediment. Zooplankton abundance and total carbon content of sediments are an order of magnitude higher in the nonglacial lakes. Shallow box cores were taken in order to study the recent sediments. Two distinct sedimentary environments are represented in the lake sediments: one dominated by higher energy, largely physical processes such as turbidity current flow, and another where chemical processes governed principally by oxidation/reduction conditions prevail. In the former, which occurs in both glacial and nonglacial lakes, periodic high sediment inflow associated with glacial or nival melt, or with summer precipitation, produces distinct laminae. The coarse laminae were supposedly deposited from the inflowing glacial streams which continued through the lake intermittently as underflows or possibly interflows. Although they contain less than 10% sand, grading and load structures indicate that these beds were probably deposited from underflows or interflows in the lake. Iron bands containing up to 39% by weight iron form where sedimentation occurs slowly and continuously under redox conditions which change as deposition occurs. Despite a very pronounced difference between winter and summer inflow to the lakes, varves could not be recognized in any of the sediments.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology