Porewater salinity reveals past lake-level changes in Lake Van, the Earth's largest soda lake.
- Tomonaga Y Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Department of Water Resources and DrinkingWater, Überlandstrasse 133, 8600, Dübendorf, Switzerland. yama@tomonaga.ch.
- Brennwald MS Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Department of Water Resources and DrinkingWater, Überlandstrasse 133, 8600, Dübendorf, Switzerland.
- Livingstone DM Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Department of Water Resources and DrinkingWater, Überlandstrasse 133, 8600, Dübendorf, Switzerland.
- Kwiecien O Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Department of Water Resources and DrinkingWater, Überlandstrasse 133, 8600, Dübendorf, Switzerland.
- Randlett MÈ Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Department Surface Water Research and Management, Seestrasse 79, 6047, Kastanienbaum, Switzerland.
- Stockhecke M Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), 8092, Zürich, Switzerland.
- Unwin K Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Department Surface Water Research and Management, Überlandstrasse 133, 8600, Dübendorf, Switzerland.
- Anselmetti FS Institute of Geological Sciences, University of Bern, Baltzerstrasse 1+3, 3012, Bern, Switzerland.
- Beer J Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Department Surface Water Research and Management, Überlandstrasse 133, 8600, Dübendorf, Switzerland.
- Haug GH Geological Institute, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), 8092, Zürich, Switzerland.
- Schubert CJ Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Department Surface Water Research and Management, Seestrasse 79, 6047, Kastanienbaum, Switzerland.
- Sturm M Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Department Surface Water Research and Management, Überlandstrasse 133, 8600, Dübendorf, Switzerland.
- Kipfer R Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Department of Water Resources and DrinkingWater, Überlandstrasse 133, 8600, Dübendorf, Switzerland.
- 2017-03-24
Published in:
- Scientific reports. - 2017
English
In closed-basin lakes, sediment porewater salinity can potentially be used as a conservative tracer to reconstruct past fluctuations in lake level. However, until now, porewater salinity profiles did not allow quantitative estimates of past lake-level changes because, in contrast to the oceans, significant salinity changes (e.g., local concentration minima and maxima) had never been observed in lacustrine sediments. Here we show that the salinity measured in the sediment pore water of Lake Van (Turkey) allows straightforward reconstruction of two major transgressions and a major regression that occurred during the last 250 ka. We observed strong changes in the vertical salinity profiles of the pore water of the uppermost 100 m of the sediments in Lake Van. As the salinity balance of Lake Van is almost at steady-state, these salinity changes indicate major lake-level changes in the past. In line with previous studies on lake terraces and with seismic and sedimentological surveys, we identify two major transgressions of up to +105 m with respect to the current lake level at about 135 ka BP and 248 ka BP starting at the onset of the two previous interglacials (MIS5e and MIS7), and a major regression of about -200 m at about 30 ka BP during the last ice age.
- Language
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- English
- Open access status
- gold
- Identifiers
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- DOI 10.1038/s41598-017-00371-w
- PMID 28331216
- Persistent URL
- https://sonar.ch/global/documents/278708
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