Paleoclimatic implication of lake sediment geochemistry in Linnévatnet, Spitsbergen, Svalbard

• Main Author: Merkert, Benjamin Gray
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: SCARAB 2015
• Subjects: Linnévatnet; Svalbard; sediments; XRF; XRD; paleoclimate; Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics; Linnébreen; glacier; Spitsbergen
• Online Access: https://scarab.bates.edu/geology_theses/21; https://scarab.bates.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=geology_theses

Linnévatnet (Norwegian, Lake Linné) is a proglacial lake located on the archipelago Svalbard at approximately 78 degrees north latitude. In addition to the sediment released by Linnébreen (Norwegian, Linné Glacier), various small streams and solifluction lobes around the lake contribute to the total sediment input. In this study, two lake cores were taken from one location along with six bulk sediment samples from major sediment sources around the lake. The elemental chemistry and physical parameters of all samples were obtained using X-ray fluorescence and a Geotek MSCL, respectively, at Hartshorne Quaternary Lab at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The mineralogy of each bulk sample was analyzed using X-ray diffraction, as were 19 one cubic cm samples from one real core. Thin sections were made from the same real core and were analyzed using high resolution scans to obtain a varve count and age model for the core. Using this data, sediment provenance over the age range of the lake core was constrained, and environmental factors that correlated with the timing of sudden sedimentation shifts were proposed as possible causes of fluctuations in sedimentation.