Contemporary sedimentation rates and depositional structures in a montane lake basin, southern Coast Mountains, British Columbia, Canada

Abstract

AbstractSpatial variability of recent lacustrine sedimentary structures and sedimentation rates are examined for Green Lake, a morphologically complex lake basin of the southern Coast Mountains, British Columbia. A dense, 100 m grid sampling scheme was used for sediment coring within the 2 km2 lake basin. Deltaic, massive, weakly laminated, and varved sediment sequences are identified within the sediment record. Spatial patterns among these sedimentary deposits are related to within‐lake sediment transfer processes, morphometric controls, and the extent of post‐depositional mixing by bioturbation. Unconformities, turbidites, and cohesive slump failure deposits, observed within the contemporary varve sequences, could all be correlated with major flooding events in the catchment area and direct anthropogenic disturbances along the shoreline. There is an overall, non‐linear decrease in sedimentation rates with increasing distance from the lake inflows; however, this pattern is disrupted in deep water sites of intervening lake sub‐basins where locally higher accumulation rates are observed. Spatial sedimentation patterns are quantitatively described by an empirically‐derived model. Systematic variations in the model parameters are observed for different lake sub‐regions and are associated with changing sediment transfer dynamics between proximal and distal sub‐basin settings. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.