δ13C-δ18O Covariance: An Effective Indicator of Hydrological Closure for Lakes?

The correlation between the δ^13C and δ^13C-δ^18O in primary carbonates is affected by several factors such as hydrological balance, total CO2 concentrations, climatic condition and lake productivity. The influence of these factors on the δ^13C-δ^18O correlation may be different on different time scales. In this paper, two different-type lakes in southwestern China, Lake Erhai and Lake Chenghai, are selected to investigate the influence of climatic pattern on the δ^13C-δ^18O correlation and to evaluate the reliability of the δ^13C-δ^18O covariance as an indicator of hydrological closure. The results show that there exists good correlation between the δ^13C and δ^18O in Lake Erhai （overflowing open lake） and in Lake Chenghai （closed lake）. This suggests that the δ^13C-δ^18O covariance may be not an effective indicator of hydrological closure for lakes, especially on short time scales. On the one hand, a hydrologically open lake may display covariant δ^13C and δ^18O as a result of climatic influence. The particular alternate warm-dry and cold-wet climatic pattern in southwestern China may be the principal cause of the δ^13C-δ^18O covariance in Lake Erhai and Lake Chenghai. On the other hand, a hydrologically closed lake unnecessarily displays covariant trends between δ^13C and δ^18O because of the buffering effect of high CO2 concentration on the δ^13C shift in hyper-alkaline lakes. We should be prudent when we use the covariance between δ^13C and δ^18O to judge the hydrological closure of lake.