Sudden enhancement of sedimentation flux of~(210)Pb_(ex) as anindicator of lake productivity as exemplified by Lake Chenghai

Recent sediments in lakes and gulfs are a sensi-tive recorder of the information about environmentalchanges in the catchment areas during recent geologi-cal history. Precise determination of the ages of sedi-ments is the key to deciphering the environmental re-cords. The 210Pb dating technique and the markertechnique based on fallout radionuclide 137Cs havefound wide applications in sedimentation rate on atime scale of several tens to one hundred years, as wellas the varve chron…

Sudden enhancement of sedimentation flux of 210Pbex as an indicator of lake productivity as exemplified by Lake Chenghai

The fundamental assumption of 210Pb sediment dating is the stable flux of 210Pbex, which was derived from atmosphere and then transferred into sediments via lake water. When the sedimentation rate is relatively constant, the 210Pbex activity in sediments will be exponentially reduced with sedimentation age. 210Pbex in lake water is incorporated into sediments mainly via organic particulates. If the sedimentation flux of organic matter in lake water is suddenly increased, 210Pbex will be significantly deposited and then transferred into sediments. On the one hand such sudden purification effect is obviously unfit for the fundamental assumption of 210Pb dating; on the other hand, the sudden enhancement of 210Pbex flux would be indicative of the conspicuous variation of primary productivity of lake water. This problem will be discussed in accordance with the variation trend of 210Pbex in the vertical profile of recent sediments of Lake Chenghai, Yunnan Province. The sediment core was collected from the deep-water area of Lake Chenghai in June 1997. The vertical profile of 137Cs activity is characterized by a tree-peak pattern. This profile gave reliable ages, and also showed the stability of sediment accumulation in the recent ten years. The vertical profile of 210Pbex activity displays a specific distribution of peaks, and is similar to the vertical profile of Corg. This phenomenon seems to be related to the mechanism of constraining the transfer of 210Pbex into lake sediments. The average atomic ratios of Horg/Corg and Corg/Norg in Lake Chenghai sediments are 5.51 and 7.04, respectively, indicating that the organic matter was predominantly derived from the remains of endogenic algae. In terms of the three-stage evolutionary characteristics of organic matter in sediments, i.e., "deposition- decomposition-accumulation", the sedimentation fluxes (F(Corg)) of organic carbon (Corg) since 1970 were calculated by modeling. The sedimentation fluxes of 210Pbex (F(210Pbex)) in different years display good synchronous relations with the sedimentation flux of organic carbon (F(Corg)), especially in the years of 1972─1974 and 1986─1989. The variation of F(Corg) led to the variation of F(210Pbex); the variation of F(210Pbex) reflects, to some extent, the historical variation of lake productivity.