Elsevier

Quaternary Science Reviews

Volume 67, 1 May 2013, Pages 81-92
Quaternary Science Reviews

Late Holocene climate and environmental changes in Kamchatka inferred from the subfossil chironomid record

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.01.018Get rights and content

Abstract

This study presents a reconstruction of the Late Holocene climate in Kamchatka based on chironomid remains from a 332 cm long composite sediment core recovered from Dvuyurtochnoe Lake (Two-Yurts Lake, TYL) in central Kamchatka. The oldest recovered sediments date to about 4500 cal years BP. Chironomid head capsules from TYL reflect a rich and diverse fauna. An unknown morphotype of Tanytarsini, Tanytarsus type klein, was found in the lake sediments. Our analysis reveals four chironomid assemblage zones reflecting four different climatic periods in the Late Holocene. Between 4500 and 4000 cal years BP, the chironomid composition indicates a high lake level, well-oxygenated lake water conditions and close to modern temperatures (∼13 °C). From 4000 to 1000 cal years BP, two consecutive warm intervals were recorded, with the highest reconstructed temperature reaching 16.8 °C between 3700 and 2800 cal years BP. Cooling trend, started around 1100 cal years BP led to low temperatures during the last stage of the Holocene. Comparison with other regional studies has shown that termination of cooling at the beginning of late Holocene is relatively synchronous in central Kamchatka, South Kurile, Bering and Japanese Islands and take place around 3700 cal years BP. From ca 3700 cal years BP to the last millennium, a newly strengthened climate continentality accompanied by general warming trend with minor cool excursions led to apparent spatial heterogeneity of climatic patterns in the region. Some timing differences in climatic changes reconstructed from chironomid record of TYL sediments and late Holocene events reconstructed from other sites and other proxies might be linked to differences in local forcing mechanisms or caused by the different degree of dating precision, the different temporal resolution, and the different sensitive responses of climate proxies to the climate variations. Further high-resolution stratigraphic studies in this region are needed to understand the spatially complex pattern of climate change in Holocene in Kamchatka and the surrounding region.

Highlights

► We investigated fossilized chironomids in lake sediment core from Central Kamchatka. ► We reconstructed late Holocene climate variations using chironomid inference model. ► Before 3.7 cal ka BP reconstructed TJuly are close to present day temperatures. ► Between 3.7 and 1.1 cal ka BP two warm stages are reconstructed. ► After 1.1 cal ka BP lower than present day TJuly are reconstructed.

Introduction

The Kamchatka Peninsula shapes the eastern edge of Siberia and separates the Sea of Okhotsk from the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the least studied regions in Eurasia. The climate history of the last 400 years in Kamchatka is well documented in tree-ring and ice-core records and suggests short-term climate oscillations at centennial to decadal time scales (Solomina et al., 2007; Sano et al., 2009, 2010). Less is known about the Holocene environmental dynamics in the region (Pisaric et al., 2001; Razjigaeva et al., 2004; Fradkina et al., 2005; Kokorowski et al., 2008).

Studies of the Holocene climate in Kamchatka are limited and mainly focus on reconstruction of vegetation dynamics from pollen records in peat sections (Dirksen and Uspenskaya, 2005; Dirksen and Dirksen, 2008) or reconstructions of glacial dynamics in southern and central Kamchatka (Zech et al., 1997; Savoskul, 1999). The present study is focussed on qualitative and quantitative reconstructions of environmental changes using chironomids, which have proven to be useful indicators of environmental variations (Battarbee, 2000; Smol et al., 2005; Stief et al., 2005; Kienast et al., 2011; Self et al., 2011). Past climate can be quantified from fossil chironomid assemblages by using inference models (Larocque et al., 2001; Solovieva et al., 2005; Barley et al., 2006; Nazarova, 2012; Nazarova et al., in press), which link the present distribution and abundance of chironomids to contemporary climate. The main objective of our study is to perform a palaeoecological reconstruction of the late Quaternary climate and environment in Kamchatka from sediments of Dvuyurtochnoe Lake (Two-Yurts Lake, TYL), situated in Central Kamchatka. The specific aim is to provide reconstructions of mean July air temperature (TJuly), using the newly developed for north-eastern Russia chironomid-inferred mean July temperature model (Nazarova et al., 2011).

Section snippets

Study area

The Kamchatka is a peninsula in the Russian Far East that lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west (Fig. 1). The longitudinal extent of the peninsula is approximately 1600 km and the maximum width is 500 km (Nazarova, 1999). Active volcanoes are part of the two mountain systems of the Kamchatka Peninsula: the Sredinny and the Vostochny mountain ranges. The Central Kamchatka Lowland is situated between the two mountain ranges and consists of alluvial,

Field work

The TYL was sampled in September 2007. Water depth (WD) was measured using a Garmin–Fishfinder-system echolot with a vertical resolution of ca 10 cm. Echographic surveying was conducted using a GEOPULSE Shallow Seismic 3.5-kHz-Profiler System to locate stations for sediment coring.

TYL sediment cores were obtained with a tripod-supported UWITEC piston corer from a floating platform at different locations in the lake. Two cores (1857-2 – upper core and 1857-5 – lower core) consisted of

Chironomid fauna and taxon richness

Most of the chironomid head capsules (81.55%) could be identified to species types and species group level, 4.5% to tribe level, 12.41% to genus level and 1.54% to subfamily level only. In total, we identified 83 taxa within 44 genera and 4 subfamilies. Twenty-six taxa belonged to subfamily Chironominae (12 Chironomini, 13 Tanytarsini and 1 Pseudochironomini), 52 taxa to subfamily Orthocladiinae, 8 taxa to subfamily Diamesinae and 2 to Tanypodinae. The majority (82.68%) of the specimens

Chironomid fauna

Our investigation of the subfossil chironomids from central Kamchatka revealed a rich taxonomic assemblage. The fauna is similar to that from Yakutia, but we observed a relatively high amount of head capsules from the subfamily Diamesinae in Kamchatka (not shown in Fig. 3), whereas almost none were found in Yakutia. Makarchenko et al. (2005) recorded 52 Diamesinae taxa in a catalogue of chironomid fauna of the Russian Far East. High taxonomic richness and abundance of Diamesini may be a

Conclusion

This study presents a reconstruction of the Late Holocene climate in Kamchatka based on chironomid remains from TYL. Chironomid head capsules from TYL reflect a rich and diverse fauna, which is similar to those from Yakutia and northwest North America. An unknown morphotype of Tanytarsini, Tanytarsus type klein, was found in the lake sediments. Our analysis reveals four chironomid assemblage zones reflecting four different climatic periods in the late Holocene. Between 4500 and 4000 cal years

Acknowledgements

We thank all of our Russian and German colleagues, who helped us during fieldwork in Kamchatka. Sincere thanks to anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. This study is part of a Russian–German joint project KALMAR (Kurile-Kamchatka and Aleutian Marginal Sea-Island Arctic Systems: Geodynamic and Climate interactions in Space and Time) and the German–Russian cooperative scientific efforts of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research.

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