Littlefield Lake, Michigan: Carbonate budget of Holocene sedimentation in a temperate‐region lacustrine system1

Abstract

Littlefield Lake is in a late stage of marl lake evolution characterized by reduced rates of carbonate precipitation. Long and short term carbonate budgets show that the volume of calcite in the lake basin is 3-7 times that expected from annual calcium depletion in the epilimnetic water. This Holocene decrease in carbonate production is also recorded as a gradual increase in the amount of organic and carbonate material in cores from the deep lake basin. Late-stage reduction in carbonate production is evidently a natural consequence of lakeward progradation of littoral marl benches, encroachment of terrestrial vegetation, and reduced colonization by carbonate-producing lake macrophytes.Carbonate-precipitating lakes and associated marl sediment of nearly pure lowmagnesium calcite fill depressions in glacial drift throughout temperate regions of the world. Both the water chemistry and ecology of such lakes have been investigated, primarily to determine the relative importance of physicochemical (e.g. Brunskill 1968Brunskill , 1969Terlecky 1974) and biochemical (e.g. Dean 198 1; Gilbert and Leask 198 1) processes in carbonate precipitation.Despite the obvious and intimate link between these processes and marl generation, lake deposits themselves have received comparatively little attention.In addition to the paucity of sedimentary data, our knowledge of lake evolution is hindered by ambiguities surrounding the long term relation between primary productivity and carbonate formation.Wetzel (1970, 1975) and Manny et al. (1978) found that in marl lakes in Michigan and Indiana, except during early post-glacial sedimentation, when rates of autochthonous organic and carbonate deposition were high, periods

Late Quaternary Palaeoenvironment of Spring Lake, Alberta, Canada

“…This may also lead to CO3 saturation and calcite precipitation. Carbonate production and deposition occur during the summer growing season when a lake is thermally stratified (Dustin et al, 1986). Absence of bottom currents, excess gas bubbles and limited bioturbation are all necessary for preservation of laminations (Kelts & Hs~i, 1978).…”

A lacustrine carbonate record of Holocene seasonality and climate

“…This insolation-productivity model is a more likely explanation for the mid-Holocene increase in CaCO 3 burial in Derby Lake than the bench/ wetland progradation model suggested by Dustin et al (1986) for Littlefi eld Lake, Michigan, which called upon progressive development of wetlands in the watershed to increase the ratio of allochthonous OC to CaCO 3 burial through the late Holocene. The wetland progradation model is problematic for Derby Lake because its carbonate benches are less prominent and the small watershed contains insignifi cant wetlands (Fig.…”

“…Previous work has suggested that changes in basin morphometry and allochthonous organic deposition (Dustin et al, 1986), and temperature (Mullins, 1998) may be drivers of long-term (low-frequency) fl uctuations in CaCO 3 burial. Additional controls on CaCO 3 burial include the rate of groundwater recharge (Shapley et al, 2005) and vegetation change, which are linked to climate change.…”

Mid-late Holocene lake levels and trophic states of a shallow lake from the southern Pampa plain, Argentina

“…Coring site is not far enough from the lake margins so that the sediment composition would be likely to record a few tens of meters of basinward shoreline migration due to natural infilling of the lake (Dustin et al, 1986). Hence, increasing organic and decreasing carbonate contents may be related with migration of sedimentary environments during bench progradation and greater influence of nearshore facies than do changes in carbonate or primary production (Dustin et al, 1986). Conditions were drier between 1570-1450 yr cal BP (Subunit 3.2).…”