Thermokarst lake development in syngenetic ice-wedge polygon terrain in the Eastern Canadian Arctic (Bylot Island, Nuvanut)

• Published in: The Cryosphere
• Main Authors: Bouchard, Frédéric, Daniel, Fortier, Paquette, Michel, Boucher, Vincent, Pienitz, Reinhard, Laurion, Isabelle
• Other Authors: Centre d'Etudes Nordiques (CEN), Université Laval Québec (ULaval), Géosciences Paris Sud (GEOPS), Université Paris-Sud - Paris 11 (UP11)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université de Montréal (UdeM), Queen's University Kingston, Canada, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique Québec (INRS), This research has been supported by the W. Garfield Weston Foundation (W. Garfield Weston Postdoctoral Fellowship in Northern Research), ArcticNet, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Polar Continental Shelf Program (PCSP) of Natural Resources Canada, the NSERC Discovery Frontiers grant “Arctic Development and Adaptation to Permafrost in Transition” (ADAPT), and the NSERC CREATE program EnviroNorth.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2019
• Subjects: [SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]; [SDU.STU]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Earth Sciences; Arctic; Bylot Island; Ice; permafrost; The Cryosphere; Thermokarst; wedge*; Alaska; Siberia
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-02373756; https://hal.science/hal-02373756/document; https://hal.science/hal-02373756/file/tc-14-2607-2020.pdf; https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-14-2607-2020

International audience Thermokarst lakes are widespread and diverse across permafrost regions and they are considered significant contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions. Paleoenvironmental reconstructions documenting the inception and development of these ecologically important water bodies are generally limited to Pleistocene-age permafrost deposits (Yedoma) of Siberia, Alaska, and the western Canadian Arctic. Here we present the gradual transition from syngenetic ice-wedge polygon terrains to a thermokarst lake in the Eastern Canadian Arctic. We combine geomorphological surveys with paleolimnological reconstructions from sediment cores in an effort to characterize local landscape evolution from terrestrial to freshwater environment. Located on an ice-rich and organic-rich polygonal terrace, the studied lake is now evolving through active thermokarst, as revealed by subsiding and eroding shores, and was likely created by water pooling within a pre-existing topographic depression. Organic sedimentation in the valley started during the mid-Holocene, as documented by the oldest organic debris found at the base of one sediment core and dated at 4.8 kyr BP. Local sedimentation dynamics were initially controlled by fluctuations in wind activity, local moisture and vegetation growth/accumulation, as shown by alternating loess (silt) and peat layers. Fossil diatom assemblages were likewise influenced by local hydro-climatic conditions and reflect a broad range of substrates available in the past (both terrestrial and aquatic). Such conditions likely prevailed until ~ 2000 BP, when peat accumulation stopped as water ponded the surface of degrading ice-wedge polygons, and the basin progressively developed into a thermokarst lake. Interestingly, this happened in the middle of the Neoglacial cooling period, likely under wetter-than-average conditions. Thereafter, the lake continued to develop as evidenced by the dominance of aquatic (both benthic and planktonic) diatom taxa in organic-rich lacustrine muds. Based ...