Authigenic, detrital and diagenetic minerals in the Laguna Potrok Aike sediment sequence

Abstract

The ∼100 m-long Laguna Potrok Aike sediment sequence yielded a record spanning the Last Glacial period to the Holocene. This paper presents and discusses two aspects of the mineralogy of the lake. The first aspect is based on a semi-quantitative X-ray diffraction analysis of bulk and clay mineralogical assemblages. Minor mineralogical changes are observed throughout the glacial section suggesting relatively uniform sediment sources. The transition into the Holocene is characterized by increasing fluxes of endogenic calcite thought to relate to lower lake levels. The second aspect is based on analysis of uranium-series disequilibria in diagenetic vivianite from the glacial section. U-series ages were expected to yield minimum ages for the host-sediment. Unfortunately, very little authigenic U is present in vivianite grains. The low primary productivity of the lake and thus low organic carbon fluxes might have prevented the development of strong redox gradients at the water-sediment interface and thus reduced diagenetic U-uptake into the sediment. One vivianite sample, at a 56.9 m composite depth, yielded enough authigenic uranium to calculate a 230Th-age of 29.4 ± 5.9 ka (±2σ). This age is younger than the one indicated by the radiocarbon chronology. It is thus concluded that a relatively late diagenetic evolution of the U–Th system characterizes the recovered vivianite minerals. The authigenic U displays a very high excess in 234U (over 238U) with an activity ratio of 4.58 ± 0.58 (±2σ). It suggests that it originates from the transfer of highly fractionated U from surrounding detrital minerals through very low U-content pore waters.