Late Quaternary Lake Dynamics in the Verkhoyansk Mountains of Eastern Siberia: Implications for Climate and Glaciation History.

Abstract

Lake Billyakh in the Verkhoyansk Mountains provides a lacustrine sediment record of the last 50 ka, which was studied by a palaeolimnological multi-proxy approach on the basis of sedimentological, geochemical, and micropalaeontological data series (diatoms, chironomids, palynomorphs). Lake history and its catchment point to two lake stages with high lake level during the Karginian (50 to 32 ka BP) and the Holocene (since 11.5 ka BP), interrupted by cold and dry conditions at low lake level during the Sartanian stage. Palaeoenvironmental changes were in accord with general trends of climate change across the higher latitudes of the northern hemisphere. The lake record moreover confirms mountain deglaciation prior to the last (global) glacial maximum, attributed to atmospheric moisture routing effects, which so far are poorly understood.