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The Holocene
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Mid- and late-Holocene limnogeology of Laguna del Negro Francisco, northern Chile, and its palaeoclimatic implications

Martin Grosjean

Department of Geography, University of Bern, 12 Hallerstrasse, 3012 Bern, Switzerland

Blas L. Valero-Garcés

Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología, Estación Experimental de Aula Dei, CSIC, 50080 Zaragoza, Spain

Mebus A. Geyh

State Geological Survey, Lower Saxony, Hannover-Buchholz, 3000 Hannover 51, Germany

Bruno Messerli

Department of Geography, University of Bern, 12 Hallerstrasse, 3012 Bern, Switzerland

Ulrich Schotterer

Department of Environmental Physics, University of Bern, 3012 Bern, Switzerland

Hans Schreier

Resource Management and Environmental Studies, University of British Columbia, 2206 East Mall, Vancouver BC, V6T 1Z3, Canada

Kerry Kelts

Limnological Research Center, University of Minnesota, 220 Pillsbury Hall, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA

Lacustrine sediments from the high elevation, endorheic, saline lake Negro Francisco (27°28'S/69°14'W, 4125 m) provide a detailed mid- and late-Holocene environmental history of the Southern Chilean Altiplano. Mineralogy, chemical composition and sedimentary facies analyses of the deposits confirm the regional significance of mid-Holocene aridity between 6000 and 3800 BP. Precipitation rates were signifi cantly lower than the c. 250 mm yr-1 of today. Fully arid conditions were interrupted by short-term moist spells with an average return period of about 200 years. Effective moisture increased after 3800 BP and peaked between 3000 and 2600 BP and between 2200 and 1800 BP in two phases with conditions more humid than today. Comparison with regional palaeodata suggest that these two late-Holocene humid spells were most likely related to Pacific moisture sources. Salinity levels increased again in Laguna del Negro Francisco after 1800 BP. The onset of modern climatic conditions was a stepwise, nonlinear process. However, the functioning of modern climate in this remote part of the world is not understood well enough to explain fully possible mech anisms of climatic changes in the past.

Key Words: Lake sediments • mid-Holocene aridity • saline lakes • arid Andes • climatic change • precipitation rates • facies analysis • geochronology • Chile.

The Holocene, Vol. 7, No. 2, 151-159 (1997)
DOI: 10.1177/095968369700700203
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