A Holocene record of snow-avalanche and flood activity reconstructed from a lacustrine sedimentary sequence in Oldevatnet, western Norway

• Published in: The Holocene
• Main Authors: Vasskog, Kristian, Nesje, Atle, Støren, Eivind Nagel, Waldmann, Nicolas, Chapron, Emmanuel, Ariztegui, Daniel
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications 2011
• Subjects: glacier
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959683610391316; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0959683610391316

Two lacustrine sediment cores from Oldevatnet in western Norway have been studied in order to produce a record of floods, mass-wasting events and glacier fluctuations during the last 7300 years. River floods, density currents and snow-avalanches have deposited distinct ‘event layers’ at the lake floor throughout this time interval. In this study, a novel approach has been applied to distinguish event layers from the continuous background sedimentation, using Rb/Sr-ratios from X-Ray Fluorescence data. Grain-size distribution and the sedimentological parameters ‘mean’ and ‘sorting’ were used to further infer the depositional processes behind each layer. Our data suggest a record dominated by snow-avalanches, with the largest activity occurring during the ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA). This increase in snow-avalanche activity observed during the LIA was probably caused by a combination of generally increasing winter precipitation and the advance of local glaciers towards the steep valley sides. Several fluctuations in snow-avalanche activity are also recognized prior to the LIA. Proxies of glacial activity from the background sediments indicate a similar development as earlier palaeoclimatic reconstructions from the area. It differs from previous reconstructions, however, by suggesting a lower glacial activity in the period from 2200 to 1000 cal. yr BP.