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Elemental interactions between pore water and lake sediments with their environmental significance: a case as Holocene sediments in Guozha Co, northwestern Tibetan Plateau

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Abstract

Elements in lake sediments and lake water were commonly used in the reconstruction for the paleoenvironment and paleoclimate, and also enriched into mineral deposit, such as lithium deposit. However, previous studies seldom distinguish the elements in porewater and minerals, and also seldom considered water–sediment interaction and how the elements of different properties migrated and enriched during the drying climate. This study investigated the major and trace elements of the porewater, and the carbonate and silicate minerals in a 407–cm-long core from Guozha Co, a brackish lake on the northwestern Tibetan Plateau. Our results indicated that (a) Ca and Sr were predominantly present in carbonate minerals, while Na, K, Mg, Li, were primarily preserved in silicate minerals. (b) the elements of porewater were closed with those of silicate minerals; (c) Nawater, Naacid, Liwater, and Liacid were more sensitive to drying climate than the others; (d) Identifying Mg/Ca, Sr/Ca and Li/Ca sources is better, rather than directly using the whole sample data to discuss environmental changes. (e) Mgwater/Liwater were much lower than those of Mgacid/Liacid and Mgresidue/Liresidue. Low temperature favors the movement of Li in aqueous solution and carbonate minerals. This is useful for the lithium extraction from brines.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Key Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (41831177), China Ministry of Science and Technology the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research (2019QZKK0202), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDA20020100, XDA20070101).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Environment and Resources (TPESER), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Minghui Li, Liping Zhu, Junbo Wang, Jianting Ju, Xiaoxiao Wang, Chong Liu, Qingfeng Ma & Teng Xu

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Liping Zhu

  3. School of Geosciences and Technology, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, 450001, China

    Baojin Qiao

Authors
  1. Minghui Li
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  2. Liping Zhu
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  3. Junbo Wang
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  4. Jianting Ju
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  5. Xiaoxiao Wang
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  6. Chong Liu
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  7. Qingfeng Ma
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  8. Teng Xu
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  9. Baojin Qiao
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Contributions

Minghui LI: Methodology, Investigation, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Liping Zhu: Writing – review & editing, Validation, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Junbo Wang: Investigation, Field work; Samples administration; Jianting Ju: Investigation, Field work; Xiaoxiao Wang: Methodology, Data curation; Chong Liu: Investigation, Field work; Qingfeng Ma: Investigation, Field work; Teng Xu, Investigation, Field work; Baojin Qiao, Investigation, Field work.

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Correspondence to Liping Zhu.

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Li, M., Zhu, L., Wang, J. et al. Elemental interactions between pore water and lake sediments with their environmental significance: a case as Holocene sediments in Guozha Co, northwestern Tibetan Plateau. Environ Earth Sci 83, 111 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-024-11429-0

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