A Record of Early to Middle Holocene Hydroclimate Variability from the West African Sahel
Abstract
The African Humid Period (ca. 14.8 to 5.5 ka) is an interval of wet climates across northwest Africa, with evidence for widespread lake basins and savannah vegetation in areas that are now desert. There are few high-resolution continental records of hydrologic variability during the African humid period however. In particular, it remains uncertain how periods of north Atlantic climate variability were expressed in northwest Africa. We present results from a 5.4 meter sediment core from Lake Fati in northern Mali (16.29° N, 3.71° W), which represents the first lake sediment core from the western Sahel. The Lake Fati core contains a continuous record of lake mud from 10.43 to 4.66 kyr BP. Centimeter scale XRF scanning indicates strong covariation between iron, calcium, manganese and phosphorous abundance due to enrichment of these elements during periods of enhanced deposition of authigenic siderite. Preliminary oxygen isotope measurements indicate that authigenic siderite δ18O values are positively correlated with Fe counts, suggesting that siderite deposition increased during drier periods with greater evaporation of lake waters. These drying events occurred on decadal to centennial time scales, with higher-frequency variability during the early Holocene. Peaks in zirconium and titanium abundance coincide with some of the inferred dry periods, suggesting that deposition of aeolian silt coincided with periods of increased evaporation of lake water. A roughly 30 year interval of sand deposition at ~8.33 kyr BP suggests major drying and activation of aeolian sand deposition. This abrupt climate change could be related to the 8.2 ka event in the North Atlantic; further efforts to refine the sediment core age model will constrain the relationship of this rapid drying to abrupt climate change in the North Atlantic. Aluminum and silicon counts co-vary for much of the lake Fati record, and are related to input of terrigenous sediment, primarily during seasonal flooding of the Niger river. Al and Si exhibit peak abundance at approximately 9.9 ka followed by a long-term decline, suggesting a long-term decrease in seasonal flooding forced by the precession-controlled reduction in local insolation. Al and Si abundances are decoupled following a transition to deposition of 16 cm sand at 4.5 ka, with Al decreasing and Si increasing rapidly. This period of sand deposition represents the termination of the African Humid Period. The timing of this event is younger than the transition at 5.5 ka recorded in marine cores from ODP site 658 (offshore of Mauritania), possibly due to Lake Fati's location further to the south and closer to the present position of the Intertropical Convergence Zone. The transition to sand deposition in the Lake Fati core is abrupt (< 40 years), but follows increasing Fe abundance for circa 200 years that could indicate gradual drying preceding this transition. A 6 cm layer of mud at the top of the core indicates the establishment of the current lake system roughly 200 years ago.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011AGUFMPP41B1746M
- Keywords:
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- 4901 PALEOCEANOGRAPHY / Abrupt/rapid climate change;
- 4914 PALEOCEANOGRAPHY / Continental climate records;
- 4924 PALEOCEANOGRAPHY / Geochemical tracers;
- 4942 PALEOCEANOGRAPHY / Limnology