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Five thousand years of sediment transfer in a high arctic watershed recorded in annually laminated sediments from Lower Murray Lake, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada

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Abstract

Sediments in Lower Murray Lake, northern Ellesmere Island, Nunavut Canada (81°21′ N, 69°32′ W) contain annual laminations (varves) that provide a record of sediment accumulation through the past 5000+ years. Annual mass accumulation was estimated based on measurements of varve thickness and sediment bulk density. Comparison of Lower Murray Lake mass accumulation with instrumental climate data, long-term records of climatic forcing mechanisms and other regional paleoclimate records suggests that lake sedimentation is positively correlated with regional melt season temperatures driven by radiative forcing. The temperature reconstruction suggests that recent temperatures are ~2.6°C higher than minimum temperatures observed during the Little Ice Age, maximum temperatures during the past 5200 years exceeded modern values by ~0.6°C, and that minimum temperatures observed approximately 2900 varve years BC were ~3.5°C colder than recent conditions. Recent temperatures were the warmest since the fourteenth century, but similar conditions existed intermittently during the period spanning ~4000–1000 varve years ago. A highly stable pattern of sedimentation throughout the period of record supports the use of annual mass accumulation in Lower Murray Lake as a reliable proxy indicator of local climatic conditions in the past.

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Acknowledgements

This study was part of the ARCSS 2 kyr Project and was based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. ATM-0402421 and ARC-0454959. We would like to thank the Polar Continental Shelf Project, Natural Resources Canada and their staff in Resolute for superb logistical support in the field; John Jaeger at the University of Florida for conducting radionuclide measurements; Maureen Davies at Oregon State University and Guillaume St-Onge at the University of Quebec at Rimouski for help with paleomagnetic analysis; and Mark Besonen, Whit Patridge, and Ted Lewis for their invaluable assistance in the field and laboratory. The authors are grateful for the suggestions of three anonymous reviewers. This is Polar Continental Shelf Project Contribution No. 02408.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Timothy L. Cook & Raymond S. Bradley

  2. College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA

    Joseph S. Stoner

  3. Institut national de la recherche scientifique, Centre Eau, Terre et Environment, Quebec, QC, Canada, G1K 9A9

    Pierre Francus

  4. GEOTOP, Geochemistry and Geodynamics Research Center, Montreal, QC, H3C 3P8, Canada

    Pierre Francus

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  1. Timothy L. Cook
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  2. Raymond S. Bradley
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  3. Joseph S. Stoner
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  4. Pierre Francus
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Correspondence to Timothy L. Cook.

Additional information

This is one of fourteen papers published in a special issue dedicated to reconstructing late Holocene climate change from Arctic lake sediments. The special issue is a contribution to the International Polar Year and was edited by Darrell Kaufman.

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Cook, T.L., Bradley, R.S., Stoner, J.S. et al. Five thousand years of sediment transfer in a high arctic watershed recorded in annually laminated sediments from Lower Murray Lake, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada. J Paleolimnol 41, 77–94 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-008-9252-0

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