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The San Nicolás succession of the Cauca paleolake: a late Holocene laminated ria lake record from the Neotropics

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Abstract

The stratigraphic, geochemical, and organic matter study of the late Holocene San Nicolás succession of the Cauca paleolake (Santa Fé–Sopetrán pull-apart basin) in the middle Cauca Valley, northern Colombia, suggests that it was deposited in a ria lake environment, at sedimentary accumulation rates in excess of 600 cm ky−1 between ~3500 and ~500 yr BP. Laminated deposition occurred, first under igapo (black-water), and then under varzea (white-water) conditions. The transition occurred ca. 3000 yr BP, a time of major change in El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) behavior in the Cariaco Basin, thus reflecting the southern migration of the intertropical convergence zone and intensified rain upstream the Cauca Valley. A second, but less conspicuous change occurred ca. 2000 yr BP, which apparently corresponds to the intensified and/or more frequent ENSO activity in the Galapagos Islands. Our contribution describes, for the first time, a ria lake sedimentary succession from the northern Andes and demonstrates the high potential of these hitherto undervalued deposits for the reconstruction of the paleohydrological history of the northern Andes.

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Acknowledgments

This work is part of the research project “Past climate variability in the Neotropics: Evidence from Lake Cauca, Colombia” funded by the Leverhulme Trust (Grant ID20050769) and Universidad Eafit. We thank Markus Oehlerich and Laurentius Sauer for help with sample preparation in the isotope lab. Special thanks to Fiore Suter for Figs. 1, 2 and 4. Sandra Lopez, Claudia Pelaez and Huber Echeverry provided valuable field and laboratory assistance. Geovany Bedoya is acknowledged for his logistic support. We thank referees for their careful reviews of the manuscript.

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  1. Christoph Mayr

    Present address: Institute of Geography, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Nuremberg, Germany

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geología, Universidad EAFIT, Area de Ciencias del Mar, Medellín, Colombia

    J. Ignacio Martínez

  2. GeoBio-Center, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Munich, Munich, Germany

    Christoph Mayr

  3. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Yusuke Yokoyama

  4. University of Regina, Regina, Canada

    Maria I. Velez

  5. ECRC, University College London, London, UK

    Richard W. Battarbee

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  1. J. Ignacio Martínez
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Correspondence to J. Ignacio Martínez.

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Martínez, J.I., Mayr, C., Yokoyama, Y. et al. The San Nicolás succession of the Cauca paleolake: a late Holocene laminated ria lake record from the Neotropics. J Paleolimnol 49, 287–300 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-012-9676-4

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