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Sedimentary charcoal pattern in a karstic underground lake, Vercors massif, French Alps: implications for palaeo-fire history

Centre of Bio-Archaeology and Ecology (CBAE, UMR CNRS 5059), Ecole Pratique des Hautes Études, Institut de Botanique, 163 rue Broussonet, F-34090 Montpellier, France, carcaillet{at}univ-montp2.fr

Anne-Sophie Perroux

Environnements et Dynamiques des Territoires de Montagne, (EDYTEM, UMR CNRS 5204), Université de Savoie, Campus scientifique, F-73376 Le Bourget du Lac, France

Aurélie Genries

Centre of Bio-Archaeology and Ecology (CBAE, UMR CNRS 5059), Ecole Pratique des Hautes Études, Institut de Botanique, 163 rue Broussonet, F-34090 Montpellier, France

Yves Perrette

Environnements et Dynamiques des Territoires de Montagne, (EDYTEM, UMR CNRS 5204), Université de Savoie, Campus scientifique, F-73376 Le Bourget du Lac, France

Knowledge on processes of charcoal transportation is crucial for fire reconstruction based on sedimentary charcoal. Charcoal is susceptible to long-distance transport by water. A lake basin with a large and long catchment area is likely to accumulate charcoal from many fires, not only those produced by fires nearby the lakeshore. Here we test the potential of charcoal transportation by analysing sedimentary charcoal accumulated in an underground lake within a karstic massif. Fires cannot spread around the lake, nor within the karstic massif. Organic materials, including charred particles, are generated several kilometres from the lake on the karstic plateau above. The pattern of sedimentary charcoal shows that the underground lake records continuously produced charcoal by wild fires or human-made biomass burning (slash-and-burn, charcoal kilns) over centuries and millennia, but also stored charcoal from eroded soils. Although the charcoal series shows a certain high variability signal, fire frequency reconstruction cannot be performed owing to chronological uncertainties. The charcoal accumulation corresponds to a more or less regular background input. Such background input is empirically well described in palaeo-fire reconstruction, but was never experimentally displayed. This study provides evidence that the pattern (surface, length, slope, etc.) of catchment areas is crucial for interpreting sedimentary charcoal series. Large catchment areas draining long rivers are not suitable for high-resolution and spatially precise fire reconstructions.

Key Words: Wood charcoal • lake • karst • sedimentology • taphonomy • mountain • fire history • French Alps.

The Holocene, Vol. 17, No. 6, 845-850 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0959683607080526


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