ALBERT

Description: The development of a glacial lake impounded along the retreating, northeastern ice margin of the Fennoscandian Ice Sheet during the last deglaciation and environmental conditions directly following the early Holocene deglaciation have been studied in NE Finland. This so-called Sokli Ice Lake has been reconstructed previously using topographic and geomorphologic evidence. In this paper a multiproxy approach is employed to study a 3-m-thick sediment succession consisting of laminated silts grading into gyttja cored in Lake Loitsana, a remnant of the Sokli Ice Lake. Variations in the sediment and siliceous microfossil records indicate distinct changes in water depth and lake size in the Loitsana basin as the Sokli Ice Lake was drained through various spillways opening up along the retreating ice front. Geochemical data (XRF core-scanning) show changes in the influence of regional catchment geochemistry (Precambrian crystalline rocks) in the glacial lake drainage area versus local catchment geochemistry (Sokli Carbonatite Massif) within the Lake Loitsana drainage area during the lake evolution. Principal component analysis on the geochemical data further suggests that grain-size is an additional factor responsible for the variability of the sediment geochemistry record. The trophic state of the lake changed drastically as a result of morphometric eutrophication once the glacial lake developed into Lake Loitsana. The AMS radiocarbon dating on tree birch seeds found in the glaciolacustrine sediment indicates that Lake Loitsana was deglaciated sometime prior to 10 700 cal. a BP showing that tree Betula was present on the deglaciated land surrounding the glacial lake. Although glacial lakes covered large areas of northern Finland during the last deglaciation, only few glaciolacustrine sediment successions have been studied in any detail. Our study shows the potential of these sediments for multiproxy analysis and contributes to the reconstruction of environmental conditions in NE Finland directly following deglaciation in the early Holocene.

Description: X-ray fluorescence (XRF) core scanning has become widely available for geological studies during the last decade. The data obtained from XRF core scanning, however, may be strongly influenced by the amount of organic matter, water content, density and porosity of the sediment matrix. In this study we discuss the usefulness of XRF core scanning to distinguish different kinds of organic-rich sediments and peat based on examples from tropical Lakes Kumphawapi and Nong Leng Sai in Thailand. We examined how sedimentary factors influence XRF core scanning analyses by comparing elemental and scattering ratios to lithological changes and quantitative LOI, TOC, biogenic silica (BSi) and grain-size values. Our comparison suggests that the (inc/coh) scattering ratio is of limited use as an indicator for variations in LOI and TOC in peaty gyttja or peat. In Lake Kumphawapi's sediments, Si/Ti ratios reflect clastic input associated with grain-size variations rather than BSi contents. The Ti-normalized ratios of Si, Zr, Sr, K and Rb are linked to mineral input and associated grain-size variations. We conclude that XRF core scanning of organic-rich tropical lake sediments and peat is useful to infer palaeoenvironmental conditions. However, XRF core scanning data does not stand-alone and needs to be underpinned by additional proxies.

Description: X-ray fluorescence (XRF) scanning of sediment cores from the Lomonosov Ridge and the Morris Jesup Rise reveals a distinct pattern of Ca intensity peaks through Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 1 to 7. Downcore of MIS 7, the Ca signal is more irregular and near the detection limit. Virtually all major peaks in Ca coincide with a high abundance of calcareous microfossils; this is particularly conspicuous in the cores from the central Arctic Ocean. However, the recorded Ca signal is generally caused by a combination of biogenic and detrital carbonate, and in areas influenced by input from the Canadian Arctic, detrital carbonates may effectively mask the foraminiferal carbonates. Despite this, there is a strong correlation between XRF-detected Ca content and foraminiferal abundance. We propose that in the Arctic Ocean north of Greenland a common palaeoceanographic mechanism is controlling Ca-rich ice-rafted debris (IRD) and foraminiferal abundance. Previous studies have shown that glacial periods are characterized by foraminfer-barren sediments. This implies that the Ca-rich IRD intervals with abundant foraminifera were most likely deposited during interglacial periods when glaciers left in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago were still active and delivered a large amount of icebergs. At the same time, conditions were favourable for planktic foraminifera, resulting in a strong covariance between these proxies. Therefore, we suggest that the XRF scanner’s capability to efficiently map Ca concentrations in sediment cores makes it possible to systematically examine large numbers of cores from different regions to investigate the palaeoceanographic reasons for the calcareous microfossils’ spatial and temporal variability. Keywords: Foraminifera; Arctic Ocean; IRD; calcareous microfossils; XRF scanning (Published: 7 February 2013) Citation: Polar Research 2013, 32 , 18386, http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/polar.v32i0.18386

Description: X-ray fluorescence (XRF) core-scanning is a fast and non-destructive technique to assess elemental variations of unprocessed sediments. However, although the exposure time of XRF-scanning directly affects the scanning counts and total measurement time, only a few studies have considered the influence of exposure time during the scan. How to select an optimal exposure time to achieve reliable results and reduce the total measurement time is an important issue. To address this question, six geological reference materials from the Geological Survey of Japan (JLK-1, JMS-1, JMS-2, JSD-1, JSD-2, and JSD-3) were scanned by the Itrax-XRF core scanner using the Mo- and the Cr-tube with different exposure times to allow a comparison of scanning counts with absolute concentrations. The regression lines and correlation coefficients of elements that are generally used in paleoenvironmental studies were examined for the different exposure times and X-ray tubes. The results show that for those elements with relatively high concentrations or high detectability, the correlation coefficients are higher than 0.90 for all exposure times. In contrast, for the low detectability or low concentration elements, the correlation coefficients are relatively low, and improve little with increased exposure time. Therefore, we suggest that the influence of different exposure times is insignificant for the accuracy of the measurements. Thus, caution must be taken when interpreting the results of elements with low detectability, even when the exposure times are long and scanning counts are reasonably high. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Description: This data set presents East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) and winter monsoon (EAWM) proxy record stacks for the last 10,000 years. Shown is the median value (X50) as well as its 1-sigma (X16; X84) and 2-sigma (X2.5;X97.5) uncertainty envelope. For the development of the stacks, we combined marine and terrestrial (non-speleothem) proxy records from the East Asian realm. Please see the supplementary information of Kaboth et al. (2021) for further details on the individual proxy records used. The individual EASM and EAWM records were linear resampled (0.1 kyr step size) and detrended before applying a low pass Taner filter with a cut-off frequency of 2 and a roll-off-rate of 10^10^. These steps were implemented to adjust for the differences in sample resolution and account for respective age uncertainties between the different proxy records, as well as remove the long-term insolation trend inherent to the selected records. The stacking was realized with an iteration loop with N=1000 iterations. For this we used the astrochron package implemented in the software R. Please see the method section in Kaboth-Bahr et al. (2021) for more details on the applied stacking algorithm.