A 12.8-ka-long palaeoenvironmental record revealed by subfossil ostracod data from lacustrine freshwater tufa in Lake Sinijärv, northern Estonia

Abstract

High-resolution quantitative analysis of ostracod assemblages from 4.3-m-thick freshwater tufa-rich sediments, deposited during the last 12.8 ka in Lake Sinijärv, northern Estonia, yielded information on water level, trophic state conditions, and temperature changes since the late glacial. AMS ¹⁴C dates from aquatic mosses provided time constraints on the palaeoenvironmental development of the region. In the ostracod assemblage structure, four faunal zones (OFZ) were determined. The most significant change in the ostracod fauna occurred at 10,590 cal. y BP, when a typical littoral, polythermophilic fauna was replaced by a mostly sublittoral, species-rich meso- to stenothermophilic fauna. The ostracod data indicate two major low-water-level periods in the lake at 12,800–10,590 and 7,600–3,700 cal. y BP. Sediment analysis indicates the most intensive tufa precipitation occurred during these low stand periods, rather than during the warmest climate in Estonia between 8,000 and 4,500 cal. y BP. The late glacial low water level in the groundwater-fed Lake Sinijärv at 12,800–10,590 cal. y BP coincides partly with the regression in the Lake Peipsi basin (14,000–12,100 cal. y BP) and with the last drainage event of the Baltic Ice Lake at 11,600 cal. y BP. The low-water-level period in Lake Sinijärv occurred earlier than in lakes in the SE sector of Scandinavian glaciation. The change from low to high water level in Lake Sinijärv at 10,590 cal. y BP preceded the first post-glacial transgression events in the small lowland lakes of Estonia, southern Sweden, Poles`ye in Belarus, and Valday in NW Russia. In general, the mid-Holocene low-water-level period in Lake Sinijärv between 7,600 and 3,700 cal. y BP is concurrent with the regressions in the lakes of the SE sector of Scandinavian glaciation.