Recent advances in isotopes as palaeolimnological proxies

Isotope geochemistry is an essential part of environmental and climate change research and over the last few decades has contributed significantly to our understanding of a huge array of environmental problems, not least in palaeolimnology and limnogeology. Here we describe some of the recent developments in the use of stable isotopes in palaeo-lake research. These are: better preparation, analysis, and interpretation of biogenic silica oxygen and silicon isotopes; extraction and characterisation of specific compounds such as leaf waxes and algal lipids for isotope analysis; determining the excess of ¹³C–¹⁸O bonds in clumped isotopes; and the measurement of multiple isotope ratios in chironomid chitin. These advances have exciting prospects and it will be interesting to see how these techniques develop further and consequently offer a real advancement in our science over the next decade.