Multi-proxy reconstruction of Holocene paleoenvironments from a sediment core retrieved from the Wadden Sea near Norderney, East Frisia, Germany

Abstract

The coastal area of the southern North Sea passed through several stages of development during the Holocene starting with swamps and bogs on Pleistocene sands. These were covered due to the rising sea-level by brackish and intertidal sediments with intercalated peat layers indicating repeated shoreline replacements. Such sedimentary archives are excellent sources for environmental reconstructions and potentially suited to deliver a regional sea-level curve. We analysed a 4.6 m-long sediment core recovered south of the island of Norderney (East Frisia, Germany) using a multiproxy approach. The record comprises a vertical stack of changing sedimentary facies, including a basal peat and a second peat layer intercalated between marine sediments, which provides a sedimentological record of local coastal evolution since 7000 cal. BP. High-resolution stratigraphic, geochemical and paleobiological analyses enables reconstructing environmental variability in response to sea-level changes including a short-lived transgressive-regressive cycle. This took place around 6000 cal. BP and lasted only a few hundred years. Our multiproxy approach demonstrates that the combined analyses of geochemical and biological parameters in concert with statistical evaluation are indispensable for the reconstruction of coastal evolution and short-term sea-level fluctuations.