A 1500-year record of climatic and environmental change in ElkLake, Clearwater County, Minnesota II: geochemistry, mineralogy, and stableisotopes

Most of the sediment components that have accumulated in ElkLake, Clearwater County, northwestern Minnesota, over the past 1500 years areauthigenic or biogenic (CaCO₃, biogenic SiO₂, organicmatter, iron and manganese oxyhydroxides, and iron phosphate) and are deliveredto the sediment–water interface on a seasonal schedule where they are preservedas distinct annual laminae (varves). The annual biogeochemical cycles of thesecomponents are causally linked through the carbon pump, and are recapitulatedin longer-term cycles, most prominently with a periodicity of about 400 years.Organic carbon is fixed in the epilimnion by photosynthetic removal ofCO₂, which also increases the pH, triggering the precipitation ofCaCO₃. The respiration and degradation of fixed organic carbon inthe hypolimnion consumes dissolved oxygen, produces CO₂, and lowersthe pH so that the hypolimnion becomes anoxic and undersaturated with respectto CaCO₃ during the summer. Some of the CaCO₃ produced inthe epilimnion is dissolved in the anoxic, lower pH hypolimnion and sediments.The amount of CaCO₃ that is ultimately incorporated into thesediments is a function of how much is produced in the epilimnion and how muchis consumed in the hypolimnion and the sediments. Iron, manganese, andphosphate accumulate in the anoxic hypolimnion throughout the summer.Sediment-trap studies show that at fall overturn, when iron-, manganese-, andphosphate-rich bottom waters mix with carbonate- and oxygen-rich surfacewaters, precipitation of iron and manganese oxyhydroxides, iron phosphate, andmanganese carbonate begins and continues into the winter months.Detrital clastic material in the sediments of Elk Lake depositedover the last 1500 years is a minor component (<10% by weight) that ismostly wind-borne (eolian). Detailed analyses of the last 1500 years of the ElkLake sediment record show distinct cycles in eolian clastic variables (e.g.aluminum, sodium, potassium, titanium, and quartz), with a periodicity of about400 years. The 400-yr cycle in eolian clastic material does not correspond tothe 400-yr cycles in redox-sensitive authigenic components, suggesting that theclastic component is responding to external forcing (wind) whereas theauthigenic components are responding to internal forcing (productivity),although both may ultimately be forced by climate change. Variations in theoxygen and carbon isotopic composition of CaCO₃ are small but appearto reflect small variations in ground water influx that are also driven byexternal forcing.