ALBERT

Description: Many German lakes experienced significant water level declines in recent decades that are not fully understood due to the short observation period. At a typical northeastern German groundwater-fed lake with a complex basin morphology, an acoustic sub-bottom profile was analysed together with a transect of five sediment cores, which were correlated using multiple proxies (sediment facies, μ-XRF, macrofossils, subfossil Cladocera ). Shifts in the boundary between sand and mud deposition were controlled by lake level changes, and hence, allowed the quantification of an absolute lake level amplitude of ~8 m for the Holocene. This clearly exceeded observed modern fluctuations of 1.3 m (AD 1973–2010). Past lake level changes were traced continuously using the calcium-record. During high lake levels, massive organic muds were deposited in the deepest lake basin, whereas lower lake levels isolated the sub-basins and allowed carbonate deposition. During the beginning of the Holocene (〉9700 cal. a BP), lake levels were high, probably due to final melting of permafrost and dead-ice remains. The establishment of water-use intensive Pinus forests caused generally low (3–4 m below modern) but fluctuating lake levels (9700–6400 cal. a BP). Afterwards, the lake showed an increasing trend and reached a short-term highstand at c.  5000 cal. a BP (4 m above modern). At the transition towards a cooler and wetter late Holocene, forests dominated by Quercus and Fagus and initial human impact probably contributed more positively to groundwater recharge. Lake levels remained high between 3800 and 800 cal. a BP, but the lake system was not sensitive enough to record short-term fluctuations during this period. Lake level changes were recorded again when humans profoundly affected the drainage system, land cover and lake trophy. Hence, local Holocene water level changes reflect feedbacks between catchment and vegetation characteristics and human impact superimposed by climate change at multiple temporal scales.

Description: This paper presents a sedimentary record from Lake Łukie located in the southeastern part of the Central European Plain, beyond the reach of the maximum extent of the last glaciation. The lake has thermokarstic origin and developed during the last glacial termination due to subsidence of the sub‐Quaternary carbonate basement triggered by permafrost thawing. A sediment core was investigated to reconstruct water trophic state and lake depth changes during the Holocene. We aimed at showing the relationship between ecological and geochemical changes in the lake and regional/supraregional climatic and hydrological trends throughout the Holocene. Results of subfossil Cladocera analysis were combined with data on the geochemistry and stable C and O isotopes in sedimentary carbonates. Isotopic and geochemical proxies helped to detect sources of sedimentary particles in the lake and thus to reconstruct changes in the intensity of atmospheric and catchment processes (e.g. precipitation and surface runoff). The Cladocera analysis results indicated endogenic processes in the lake such as trophic changes. Our data revealed that Lake Łukie has always been a rather eutrophic water body and the periods of particularly high productivity were in the lower Preboreal and upper Subatlantic. Periods of increased water depth were recorded in the lower Preboreal, lower Boreal and upper Subboreal, whereas low water stands were obtained during the late Preboreal, late Boreal, late Atlantic and Atlantic/Subboreal transition as well as during the lower Subboreal. The sediment succession from Lake Łukie provides the first full Holocene record of carbon and oxygen stable isotopes in lacustrine carbonates from the eastern part of the Central European Lowland. The record is characterized by uncommonly high δ13C and δ18O values of the carbonates resulting from a combination of within‐lake processes and dissolution of the carbonate bedrock of Cretaceous age. The impact of the old carbonates on isotope values was helpful in the reconstruction of the catchment forcing on the lake.