Early Holocene environment on Bjørnøya (Svalbard) inferred from multidisciplinary lake sediment studies
Bjørnøya, a small (178 km2) island situated between the mainland of Norway and southern Spitsbergen, provides the opportunity for the reconstruction of early Holocene terrestrial and limnic palaeoenvironments in the southwestern Barents Sea. The AMS 14C dating technique, geochemical, mineral magneti...
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Norwegian Polar Institute
1995
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ftjpolarres:oai:journals.openacademia.net:article/1951 2023-05-15T15:39:00+02:00 Early Holocene environment on Bjørnøya (Svalbard) inferred from multidisciplinary lake sediment studies Wohlfarth, Barbara Lemdahl, Geoffrey Olsson, Siv Persson, Thomas Snowball, Ian Ising, Jonas Jones, Viv 1995-01-11 application/pdf https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/1951 https://doi.org/10.3402/polar.v14i2.6667 eng eng Norwegian Polar Institute https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/1951/5200 https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/1951 doi:10.3402/polar.v14i2.6667 Copyright (c) 2018 Polar Research Polar Research; Vol. 14 No. 2 (1995): Special issue: the PONAM project in eastern Svalbard; 253-275 1751-8369 info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 1995 ftjpolarres https://doi.org/10.3402/polar.v14i2.6667 2021-11-11T19:11:42Z Bjørnøya, a small (178 km2) island situated between the mainland of Norway and southern Spitsbergen, provides the opportunity for the reconstruction of early Holocene terrestrial and limnic palaeoenvironments in the southwestern Barents Sea. The AMS 14C dating technique, geochemical, mineral magnetic, micro and macrofossil analyses were applied to sediments recovered from lake Stevatnet and the results are interpreted in terms of palaeoenvironmental conditions between 9800 and 8300 14C bp. After the disappearance of local glaciers before ca 980014C BP, the lake productivity increased rapidly at the same time as pioneer plant communities developed on soils which gradually became more stable. Insect data indicates that strong seasonal contrasts with mean July temperatures around 9°C and mean January temperatures around ?12°C prevailed between 9500 and 8300 14C BP. These high summer temperatures, possibly as much as 4-5°C higher than the present, favoured the development of a flora including Dryas and Angelica cf. archangelica. The enhanced freeze/thaw processes led to an increased erosion of minerogenic and organic material. After 8000 14C BP the temperatures may have gradually declined. The environmental reconstruction derived from our data set supports the conceptual insolation model which proposes maximum Holocene seasonality for the Northern Hemisphere at ca 9000 14C BP. Article in Journal/Newspaper Barents Sea Bjørnøya Polar Research Svalbard Spitsbergen Polar Research (E-Journal) Barents Sea Bjørnøya ENVELOPE(-67.250,-67.250,-68.151,-68.151) Norway Svalbard Polar Research 14 2 253 275 |
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Open Polar |
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Polar Research (E-Journal) |
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ftjpolarres |
language |
English |
description |
Bjørnøya, a small (178 km2) island situated between the mainland of Norway and southern Spitsbergen, provides the opportunity for the reconstruction of early Holocene terrestrial and limnic palaeoenvironments in the southwestern Barents Sea. The AMS 14C dating technique, geochemical, mineral magnetic, micro and macrofossil analyses were applied to sediments recovered from lake Stevatnet and the results are interpreted in terms of palaeoenvironmental conditions between 9800 and 8300 14C bp. After the disappearance of local glaciers before ca 980014C BP, the lake productivity increased rapidly at the same time as pioneer plant communities developed on soils which gradually became more stable. Insect data indicates that strong seasonal contrasts with mean July temperatures around 9°C and mean January temperatures around ?12°C prevailed between 9500 and 8300 14C BP. These high summer temperatures, possibly as much as 4-5°C higher than the present, favoured the development of a flora including Dryas and Angelica cf. archangelica. The enhanced freeze/thaw processes led to an increased erosion of minerogenic and organic material. After 8000 14C BP the temperatures may have gradually declined. The environmental reconstruction derived from our data set supports the conceptual insolation model which proposes maximum Holocene seasonality for the Northern Hemisphere at ca 9000 14C BP. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Wohlfarth, Barbara Lemdahl, Geoffrey Olsson, Siv Persson, Thomas Snowball, Ian Ising, Jonas Jones, Viv |
spellingShingle |
Wohlfarth, Barbara Lemdahl, Geoffrey Olsson, Siv Persson, Thomas Snowball, Ian Ising, Jonas Jones, Viv Early Holocene environment on Bjørnøya (Svalbard) inferred from multidisciplinary lake sediment studies |
author_facet |
Wohlfarth, Barbara Lemdahl, Geoffrey Olsson, Siv Persson, Thomas Snowball, Ian Ising, Jonas Jones, Viv |
author_sort |
Wohlfarth, Barbara |
title |
Early Holocene environment on Bjørnøya (Svalbard) inferred from multidisciplinary lake sediment studies |
title_short |
Early Holocene environment on Bjørnøya (Svalbard) inferred from multidisciplinary lake sediment studies |
title_full |
Early Holocene environment on Bjørnøya (Svalbard) inferred from multidisciplinary lake sediment studies |
title_fullStr |
Early Holocene environment on Bjørnøya (Svalbard) inferred from multidisciplinary lake sediment studies |
title_full_unstemmed |
Early Holocene environment on Bjørnøya (Svalbard) inferred from multidisciplinary lake sediment studies |
title_sort |
early holocene environment on bjørnøya (svalbard) inferred from multidisciplinary lake sediment studies |
publisher |
Norwegian Polar Institute |
publishDate |
1995 |
url |
https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/1951 https://doi.org/10.3402/polar.v14i2.6667 |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(-67.250,-67.250,-68.151,-68.151) |
geographic |
Barents Sea Bjørnøya Norway Svalbard |
geographic_facet |
Barents Sea Bjørnøya Norway Svalbard |
genre |
Barents Sea Bjørnøya Polar Research Svalbard Spitsbergen |
genre_facet |
Barents Sea Bjørnøya Polar Research Svalbard Spitsbergen |
op_source |
Polar Research; Vol. 14 No. 2 (1995): Special issue: the PONAM project in eastern Svalbard; 253-275 1751-8369 |
op_relation |
https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/1951/5200 https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/1951 doi:10.3402/polar.v14i2.6667 |
op_rights |
Copyright (c) 2018 Polar Research |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3402/polar.v14i2.6667 |
container_title |
Polar Research |
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14 |
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2 |
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253 |
op_container_end_page |
275 |
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1766370444349276160 |