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Mud and magnetism: records of late Pleistocene and Holocene environmental change recorded by magnetic measurements

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Abstract

The paper presents a personal summary of the role of magnetic measurements in lake sediment studies. Examples are used to illustrate the main variations in lake sediment magnetic properties and the processes controlling their variations. These are considered in terms of sediment sequences: (1) that are virtually devoid of magnetic minerals; (2) the magnetic properties of which are dominated by input of magnetic minerals from ‘primary’, unweathered catchment sources (3) with magnetic properties indicative of erosion of weathered material, mainly magnetically enhanced topsoil; (4) that have received minimal input of terrigenous ferrimagnetic minerals but are rich in biogenic magnetite (5) parts of which have experienced dissolution diagenesis (6) in which signals from erosion, biogenic magnetite and dissolution can all be detected and (7) that are dominated by the presence of authigenic greigite. Additional issues, including the importance of particle size variations as a control of magnetic properties, the under-representation of haematite and goethite in the magnetic record and the significance of atmospheric deposition are also considered. A concluding section briefly outlines the present status of environmental magnetism and its role in palaeoenvironmental research based on lake sediment studies.

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Acknowledgments

I thank Jan Bloemendal for allowing me to use his results from Hawes Water in Fig. 1, Shiva Patil and Vasant Nijampurkar for the data from Lake Inle, Kuno van der Post for unpublished data from Lough na Shade and, as ever, Sandra Mather for all her help in compiling and drafting the figures.

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Correspondence to Frank Oldfield.

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A celebration of Prof Rick Battarbee’s contributions to palaeolimnology, edited by Holmes et al.

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Oldfield, F. Mud and magnetism: records of late Pleistocene and Holocene environmental change recorded by magnetic measurements. J Paleolimnol 49, 465–480 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-012-9648-8

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