The relative influences of climate and volcanic activity on Holocene lake development inferred from a mountain lake in central Kamchatka

Abstract

A sediment sequence was taken from a closed, high altitude lake (informal name Olive-backed Lake) in the central mountain range of Kamchatka, in the Russian Far East. The sequence was dated by radiocarbon and tephrochronology and used for multi-proxy analyses (chironomids, pollen, diatoms). Although the evolution of Beringian climate through the Holocene is primarily driven by global forcing mechanisms, regional controls, such as volcanic activity or vegetation dynamics, lead to a spatial heterogeneous response. This study aims to reconstruct past changes in the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and to separate the climate-driven response from a response to regional or localised environmental change. Radiocarbon dates from plant macrophytes gave a basal date of 7800calyr BP. Coring terminated in a tephra layer, so sedimentation at the lake started prior to this date, possibly in the early Holocene following local glacier retreat. Initially the catchment vegetation was dominated by Betula and Alnus woodland with a mosaic of open, wet, aquatic and semi-aquatic habitats. Between 7800 and 6000calyr BP the diatom-inferred lake water was pH4.4–5.3 and chironomid and diatom assemblages in the lake were initially dominated by a small number of acidophilic/acid tolerant taxa. The frequency of Pinus pumila (Siberian dwarf pine) pollen increased from 5000calyr BP and threshold analysis indicates that P. pumila arrived in the catchment between 4200 and 3000calyr BP. Its range expansion was probably mediated by strengthening of the Aleutian Low pressure system and increased winter snowfall. The diatom-inferred pH reconstructions show that after an initial period of low pH, pH gradually increased from 5500calyr BP to pH5.8 at 1500calyr BP. This trend of increasing pH through the Holocene is unusual in lake records, but the initially low pH may have resulted directly or indirectly from intense regional volcanic activity during the mid-Holocene. The chironomid-inferred July temperature reconstruction suggests cool periods between 3200–2800calyr BP and 1100–700calyr BP and a warmer period between 2800 and 1100calyr BP. Chironomid and diatom DCA scores decline from ca. 6000calyr BP, indicating compositional changes in these aquatic assemblages. In comparison declines in pollen PCA scores are delayed, starting ca. 5100calyr BP. The results suggest that while catchment vegetation was responding primarily to climate change, the biota within the lake and lake water chemistry were responding to localised environmental conditions.