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A new ~ 900-year varved record in Lake Walker, Québec North Shore, eastern Canada: insight on late Holocene climate mode of variability

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Abstract

This paper presents a new annually laminated record (varves) from Lake Walker, Québec North Shore (eastern Canada) spanning the period from ~ 3230 to 2320 ± 20 cal BP. A ~ 3.5-m-long composite sequence was established with the best regular and continuous laminated intervals using computed tomography and high-resolution photographs. The varve chronology was built based on two methods: manual multi-parameter counting using the PeakCounter software, and manual counting on thin-section images obtained by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The latter correlates more closely with the ages derived from AMS radiocarbon dating, suggesting that thin-section analysis is here a more reliable counting technique. Varves are clastic, composed of a silt layer deposited in spring and summer, and a clay layer deposited in winter. Annually resolved grain size obtained using image analysis technique on SEM images of thin sections and elemental composition from X-ray microfluorescence analyses performed on the floating varve chronology suggests that the record is sensitive to the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), as revealed by the strong co-variability with another lower resolution record from Greenland. This suggests that periods of negative winter NAO promoted a thicker snow cover that resulted in higher river discharges and stronger clastic component in the varves. In modern times, cooling of the North Atlantic in the mid 1970s to the late 1980s was also characterized by concurrent negative phase of NAO, which condition translated into increase snow precipitation over the region. Overall, these results highlight that the new Lake Walker varve record presents remarkable prospects of developing a longer and high-resolution paleoclimatological reconstruction of the NAO in a region where similar records are scarce.

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Acknowledgements

Obinna Nzekwe and Francois Lapointe contributed equally to this paper. This research was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery grants and Ship Time grant, and by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec: Nature et Technologies (FRQNT)—recherche en équipe to P.F, G.S and P.L. Graduate scholarships from GEOTOP (2015) and NSERC CREATE EnviroNorth (2016) to O.P Nzekwe are acknowledged. The authors particularly thank Richard Niedereiter of UWITEC (Mondsee, Austria), and Sylvain Boulianne of the Québec Ministères de Forêts, Faune et Parks for their assistance during fieldwork in the winter of 2015. Also, thanks to Louis-Frederic Daigle and Mathieu Des Roches (INRS-ETE), Quentin Beauvais (UQAR-ISMER), and Antoine-Gagnon-Poiré (INRS-ETE) for their assistance in the laboratory, and to Antoine Gagnon-Poiré for providing the bathymetric and location maps. Lastly, the management and staff at La Réserve faunique de Port-Cartier-Sept-Îles are appreciated for easing the access to the lakes.

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  1. Obinna P. Nzekwe and Francois Lapointe have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Canada Research Chair in Environmental Sedimentology, Centre - Eau Terre Environnement, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Québec, QC, G1K 9A9, Canada

    Obinna P. Nzekwe, Francois Lapointe, Pierre Francus, David Fortin, Jean-Philippe Jenny, Arnaud De Coninck & Thibault Labarre

  2. Department of Geosciences, Climate System Research Center, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, 01003, USA

    Francois Lapointe

  3. GEOTOP Research Centre in the Dynamics of the Earth System, Montréal, QC, H2X 3Y7, Canada

    Pierre Francus

  4. Canada Research Chair in Marine Geology, Institut des Sciences de la mer de Rimouski (ISMER), Université du Québec à Rimouski, Rimouski, Canada

    Guillaume St-Onge & Édouard G. H. Philippe

  5. Département de Géographie, Université Laval, Québec, QC, G1V 0A6, Canada

    Patrick Lajeunesse & Thibault Labarre

  6. Department of Geography and Planning, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, S7N5C8, Canada

    David Fortin

  7. Université Savoie Mont Blanc, INRA, CARRTEL, 74200, Thonon-les-Bains, France

    Jean-Philippe Jenny

  8. Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Sorbonne Paris-Cité, UMR 7154 CNRS, Paris, France

    Édouard G. H. Philippe

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Nzekwe, O.P., Lapointe, F., Francus, P. et al. A new ~ 900-year varved record in Lake Walker, Québec North Shore, eastern Canada: insight on late Holocene climate mode of variability. J Paleolimnol 67, 35–57 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-021-00220-x

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