High-resolution diatom/clay record in Lake Baikal from grey scale, and magnetic susceptibility over Holocene and Termination I

Tracing past climate signals from Lake Baikal sediments with a “multi-annual” resolution by conventional techniques is a difficult challenge since the sedimentation rates from Termination I up to the present range from 0.004 to 0.17 mm/year. In this paper, climate signals are reconstructed from three continuous sediment records from Vydrino Shoulder and Posolsky Bank in the Southern Basin, and Continent Ridge in the Northern Basin. For each coring site, a calendar age model was constructed using calibrated radiocarbon ages. The magnetic susceptibility is used to better constrain the age models over OIS4 to OIS1. The cores have been hardened using polymerized technique in order to allow the easy cut of thin sections that contain evidence for narrow biogenic/clayey laminations. The grey scale taken from the thin sections is used here as a high-resolution proxy record of diatom/clay ratio. The grey density values are qualitatively interpreted against the sediment components by optical microscopy from the thin sections. In the Northern Basin, the Continent station provides the best age model and sediment resolution over the Termination I period. In particular, four optima (i.e. Bölling, Alleröd, Atlantic, and Subboreal) are indicated by substantial increases of the grey scale, whereas cold periods like the Younger Dryas correspond to lower grey scale values. We emphasize that the short-term variations in the grey scale at 20 μm resolution could correspond to short climate responses in Lake Baikal sediments.