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Sedimentary records of recent environmental change in Lake Baikal, Siberia

Environmental Change Research Centre, University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London WC1H OAP, UK

A.W. Mackay

Environmental Change Research Centre, University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London WC1H OAP, UK

N.L. Rose

Environmental Change Research Centre, University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London WC1H OAP, UK

J.L. Boyle

Department of Geography, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, UK

J.A. Dearing

Department of Geography, University of Coventry, Coventry CV1 5BI, UK

P.G. Appleby

Department of Theoretical Physics and Applied Mathematics, University of Liverpool, Liverpool L69 3BX, UK

A.E. Kuzmina

Limnological Institute, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, PO Box 4199, Irkutsk 664033, Russia

L.Z. Granina

Limnological Institute, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, PO Box 4199, Irkutsk 664033, Russia

Lake Baikal is the world's largest freshwater lake and is internationally famous for its rich and largely endemic biota. Concern about this unique ecosystem has grown since the late 1970s but whether recent biological changes result from natural fluctuations or pollution is unclear. One way of discriminating between these processes is to examine records of recent change in radiometrically dated deep-water sediment cores. Here we use high-resolution diatom analysis of one core to show that abundances have not changed significantly over recent decades. By contrast, we demonstrate that the lake is contaminated by atmospheric pollutants and has experienced a small qualitative change in soil derived magnetic minerals. Sedimentary lead concentrations show an increasing trend in the c. 150-year core sequence and spheroidal carbonaceous particles (SCPs) contaminate post-1930 sediment. Although we provide no evidence that twentieth-century pollution has affected the endemic planktonic diatoms in the central western region of southern Lake Baikal, longer trends in species abundances could be related to naturally occurring climatic cycles or to global warming.

Key Words: Palaeolimnology • radiometric dating • diatoms • trace metals • magnetic minerals • carbonaceous particles • SCP • Lake Baikal.

The Holocene, Vol. 5, No. 3, 323-327 (1995)
DOI: 10.1177/095968369500500307


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