Paleoenvironmental assessment from the physical properties of lacustrine and marine sediments: a Canadian contribution to IGCP 374

Abstract

In 1994 the International Geological Correlation Project (IGCP) approved project 374 under the leadership of Dr Alan E. S. Kemp titled the ‘Palaeoclimatology and palaeoceanography from late Quaternary and Holocene laminated sediments: a global joint approach using marine and lacustrine sediments’. Special emphasis is on the periods: 2000–0 BP, the last glacial maximum to the beginning of the Holocene (25 000–10 000 BP) and Isotope Stage 5. The objectives are (1) to provide a linking framework between marine and lacustrine records, (2) to disseminate information on techniques of recovery and analysis, (3) to understand the origin of laminated sediments in order to better interpret the sedimentary record, and (4) to assess change, to separate global from local effects, and to identify human effects. Canadian earth scientists and others working in Canada have been involved in aspects of this work for many years. Our diverse environment includes the polar desert of the High Arctic, the rain forests of the west coast, the plains of the continental interior, and the largest area of fresh water in the world in the Great Lakes of the east. As well, more than 60% of the land is overlain by Quaternary glacilacustrine and glacimarine sediments (Prest et al., 1968). Exploration of the marine geology of the shelf and nearshore seas off Canada is also yielding important environmental information (e.g. Keen & Williams, 1990).