1Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Section 5.2 – Climate Dynamics and Landscape Evolution, Telegrafenberg, 14473 Potsdam, Germany
2University of Cologne, Institute of Geology and Mineralogy, Zülpicher Straße 49A, 50674 Köln, Germany
3Umeå University, Climate Impacts Research Centre (CIRC), 981 07 Abisko, Sweden
4NEISRI, Russian Academy of Science, Magadan, 685000, Russia
*now at: University of Turku, Department of Geography and Geology, Section of Geology, 20014 Turku, Finland
**now at: Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Centre for Geoinformation Technology CeGIT, Telegrafenberg, 14473 Potsdam, Germany
***now at: Institute of Geological Sciences, University of Bern, Baltzerstraße 1+3, Bern, Switzerland
****now at: Umeå University, Ecology and Environmental Sciences, 981 07 Abisko, Sweden
Received: 15 May 2013 – Published in Clim. Past Discuss.: 07 Jun 2013
Abstract. A 318-metre-long sedimentary profile drilled by the International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) at Site 5011-1 in Lake El'gygytgyn, Far East Russian Arctic, has been analysed for its sedimentologic response to global climate modes by chronostratigraphic methods. The 12 km wide lake is sited off-centre in an 18 km large crater that was created by the impact of a meteorite 3.58 Ma ago. Since then sediments have been continuously deposited. For establishing their chronology, major reversals of the earth's magnetic field provided initial tie points for the age model, confirming that the impact occurred in the earliest geomagnetic Gauss chron. Various stratigraphic parameters, reflecting redox conditions at the lake floor and climatic conditions in the catchment were tuned synchronously to Northern Hemisphere insolation variations and the marine oxygen isotope stack, respectively. Thus, a robust age model comprising more than 600 tie points could be defined. It could be shown that deposition of sediments in Lake El'gygytgyn occurred in concert with global climatic cycles. The upper ~160 m of sediments represent the past 3.3 Ma, equivalent to sedimentation rates of 4 to 5 cm ka−1, whereas the lower 160 m represent just the first 0.3 Ma after the impact, equivalent to sedimentation rates in the order of 45 cm ka−1. This study also provides orbitally tuned ages for a total of 8 tephras deposited in Lake El'gygytgyn.
Revised: 18 Sep 2013 – Accepted: 26 Sep 2013 – Published: 01 Nov 2013
Citation: Nowaczyk, N. R., Haltia, E. M., Ulbricht, D., Wennrich, V., Sauerbrey, M. A., Rosén, P., Vogel, H., Francke, A., Meyer-Jacob, C., Andreev, A. A., and Lozhkin, A. V.: Chronology of Lake El'gygytgyn sediments – a combined magnetostratigraphic, palaeoclimatic and orbital tuning study based on multi-parameter analyses, Clim. Past, 9, 2413-2432, doi:10.5194/cp-9-2413-2013, 2013.