Varve-counting by the annual pattern of diatoms accumulated in the sediment of Big Watab Lake, Minnesota, AD 1837–1990 |
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| Authors: | VIRGINIA M CARD |
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| Institution: | Limnological Research Center, University of Minnesota, 220 Pillsbury Hall, 310 Pillsbury Drive S. E., Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA |
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| Abstract: | The goal of this study was to develop a method for extracting quantitative annual records of diatoms and other microfossils from sediments that are resistant to existing varve-counting methods because of their variable, complex, or indistinct laminations. Very linely laminated organic sediments from a deep diamictic lake in central Minnesota, USA were collected by freeze-core, dehydrated by solvent exchange, embedded with epoxy, and petrographically thin-sectioned. Diatom frustules and pollen grains were counted in contiguous 400 pm microscope fields-of-view and used to construct a sediment chronology. The concentration of diatoms in the sediment was cyclic and lowest in sediment deposited during summer. The concentration of pollen in the sediment was also cyclic and sediment deposited during the summer contained the highest concentrations of pollen and the highest percentages of ragweed ( Ambrosia spp.) pollen. The sediment chronology that was produced accurately records the onset of regional (c. 1850) and watershed ( c . 1880) development, a historic tornadic storm complex (1894), and individual drought years (1932, 1934 & 1935) within the 1930's drought. |
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