Late Holocene (ca. 4 ka) marine and terrestrial environmental change in Reykjarfjördur, north Iceland: climate and/or settlement?

Abstract

AbstractCore B997‐328PC is from the landward side of a 100‐m‐deep basin in Reykjarfjördur, a small fjord on the north coast of the northwest peninsula of Iceland. This is an area that can be severely affected by incursions of polar sea‐ice but has not suffered marked land erosion during the Settlement period. The core is 422 cm in length and consists principally of fine‐grained muds with in situ molluscs. Eleven AMS 14C dates on molluscs indicate a constant sediment accumulation rate of ca. 1 cm 10 yr−1 for the last 4280 ± 50 yr BP. We measured and derived a variety of proxies for indications of changes in the nearshore environment. These included physical properties and grain size, mass accumulation rates, micropalaeontology (pollen and Foraminifera). Multivariate analysis and constrained clustering were used to define major changes in the proxies. In several parameters the major change in the fjord environment occurred close to 1000 14C yr ago, thus approximately coincident with the onset of the Settlement of Iceland. Other changes are noted at around 1600 and 3400 14C yr ago; Betula pollen disappears from the record ca. 1500 yr BP and there are peaks in marine productivity occurring ca. 2 and 3.4 ka. A major decline in carbonate accumulation and a sharp increase in the cold water benthic foraminifer Elphidium excavatum forma clavata 400 yr ago represents the local marine signature of the Little Ice Age. None of the changes in our data can be explained adequately by a simple call to land‐use practices and an increase in land to sea transport, but both the pollen and foraminiferal records indicate a decrease and even loss of ‘warm’ elements in both flora and fauna over the past 4 kyr. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.