Reconstruction of ecological changes during the Late glacial in small filled lake in Western Carpathians, Slovakia
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| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Description | For palaeoecological reconstruction of climate and lake environment, the sub-fossil chironomid head capsules are frequently used. Reconstructed variables are mostly July air temperature, but also other related variables as a trophic status, pH, oxygen saturation, water depth or substrate type. Although the usefulness of transfer functions for reconstruction of mentioned variables was successfully tested in suitable mountain lake areas, there are still regions (e.g. Carpathian mountain arch in Central and Eastern Europe) where there is still lack of palaeochironomid data. Filled palaeolakes have many advantageous attributes, not only the easier site accessibility which simplified sampling procedure, but also elimination of latter human impacts which can alternate palaeorecords in the recent lakes. The case study was carried out on small infilled lake (present day peat-bog, area of 2.3 ha) below the Motrogon hill in Vihorlat Mountains (altitude of 820 m) close to Slovakia/Ukraine border. Due to this position and relative inaccessibility is locality without obvious human impact. The lake was on the top of the large landslide on andesite bedrock. The limnic sediment reached depth of 11.1 m, but we focused especially on the deepest layers. Chironomid analyses were done in sequence 1 110 - 940 cm (preliminary dated by C14 to ca 12 900 – 11 550 cal. BP). These 1.7 m thick layers covers Youger Dryas period and Pleistocene/Holocene transition according to pollen stratigraphy in 965-970 cm. The core sediment was separated into 5 cm thick layers, and 15 samples selected for pilot study of chironomid larvae assemblages’ composition were analysed. The first insight into chironomid assemblages promises very valuable material for analyses of detail fossil record of ecological changes of the palaeolake in the Late-glacial period, however much higher number of treated layers is needed to get more reliable results. Study was supported by the Grant agency of the CR (P504/11/0429). |
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