Home – Home – Jornals – Russian Geology and Geophysics 2004 number 5

Late Pleistocene (late Glacial) and Holocene abiotic conditions in Lake Baikal have been reconstructed for the past 16 kyr at a resolution of 200 yr on the basis of a detailed time scale of climate events in the Northern hemisphere and atmospheric CO₂. Severe glacial conditions in the latest Pleistocene are reflected in an extremely low input of biogenic elements from the Baikal drainage basin which may be responsible for very low diatom abundances in the bottom sediments of the lake. Biogenic input increased significantly in a warm and humid climate between 11 and 9 kyr as a result of deglaciation, vegetation advance, and higher rates of chemical weathering supplying Si- and P-bearing minerals. The abrupt increase in diatom production about 8 kyr BP may have been caused by improved physical conditions (higher sub-ice insolation, thinner layer of convective mixing, etc.) and by rapidly increasing river input of nutrients.