Bittner, L;
Bliedtner, M;
Grady, D;
Gil-Romera, G;
Martin-Jones, C;
Lemma, B;
Mekonnen, B;
... Zech, M; + view all
(2020)
Revisiting afro-alpine Lake Garba Guracha in the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia: rationale, chronology, geochemistry, and paleoenvironmental implications.
Journal of Paleolimnology
10.1007/s10933-020-00138-w.
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Abstract
Previous paleolimnological studies demonstrated that the sediments of Garba Guracha, situated at 3950 m asl in the afro-alpine zone of the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia, provide a complete Late Glacial and Holocene paleoclimate and environmental archive. We revisited Garba Guracha in order to retrieve new sediment cores and to apply new environmental proxies, e.g. charcoal, diatoms, biomarkers, and stable isotopes. Our chronology is established using 210Pb dating and radiocarbon dating of bulk sedimentary organic matter, bulk n-alkanes, and charcoal. Although bedrock was not reached during coring, basal ages confirm that sedimentation started at the earliest ~ 16 cal kyr BP. The absence of a systematic age offset for the n-alkanes suggests that “pre-aging” is not a prominent issue in this lake, which is characterised by a very small afro-alpine catchment. X-ray fluorescence scans and total organic carbon contents show a prominent transition from minerogenic to organic-rich sediments around 11 cal kyr BP coinciding with the Holocene onset. While an unambiguous terrestrial versus aquatic source identification seems challenging, the n-alkane-based Paq proxy, TOC/N ratios, δ13C values, and the sugar biomarker patterns suggest a predominantly autochthonous organic matter source. Supraregional climate events, such as the African Humid Period, the Younger Dryas (YD), a 6.5 cal kyr BP short drying event, and the 4.2 cal kyr BP transition to overall drier climate are recorded in our archive. The Garba Guracha record suggests that northern hemisphere forcings played a role in the Eastern African highland paleoclimate.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Revisiting afro-alpine Lake Garba Guracha in the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia: rationale, chronology, geochemistry, and paleoenvironmental implications |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s10933-020-00138-w |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-020-00138-w |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Physical Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geosciences, Multidisciplinary, Limnology, Environmental Sciences & Ecology, Geology, Marine & Freshwater Biology, Paleolimnology, Afro-alpine, Radiocarbon dating, XRF scanning, Sedimentation rate, Biomarkers, AFRICAN HUMID PERIOD, FLY-ASH PARTICLES, LATE PLEISTOCENE, ORGANIC-MATTER, PALEOSOL SEQUENCES, MAAR SEDIMENTS, ISOTOPE-RATIO, EAST-AFRICA, LAND-USE, HOLOCENE |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Geography |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10105957 |
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