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Luminescence geochronology for sediments from Lake El’gygytgyn, northeast Siberia, Russia: constraining the timing of paleoenvironmental events for the past 200 ka

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Abstract

This study focused on the luminescence dating of sediments from Lake El’gygytgyn, a meteorite impact crater 100 km north of the Arctic Circle in northeast Siberia, formed 3.58 Ma ago. The sediment is principally eolian deposited in to a lake with nearly permanently ice. The fine-grained polymineral and quartz extracts taken from nine distinct levels from the upper 12.3 m of sediment core PG1351 were dated by infrared stimulated (IRSL) and green stimulated luminescence (GSL) using multiple aliquot additive dose procedures. The veracity of these ages is evaluated by comparing to an age model for the core derived from magnetic excursions and from correlation of variations of the magnetic susceptibility record to similar magnitude variations in δ 18O in the Greenland Ice core record. The IRSL ages from the upper 9 m of core correspond well with the independent age control for the past ca. 200 ka. However, sediments deeper in the core at 12.3 m with an inferred age of ca. 250 ka age yield a saturated IRSL response and therefore a non-finite OSL age. The youngest sediment dated from 0.70 m depth yielded the IRSL age of ca. 11.5 ka, older than the corresponding age of 9.3–8.8 ka, indicating a discrepancy in dating the youngest sediments in the upper 1 m of core. This study confirms the utility of IRSL by the multiple aliquot additive dose method to date sediments <200 ka old from eastern Siberia.

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Acknowledgements

OSL analyses of sediments from Lake El’gygytgyn was supported by NSF award OPP-0012345 to J. Brigham-Grette. Review comments by F.␣Preusser and an anonymous reviewer are much appreciated.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois, 845 W. Taylor Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60607-7059, USA

    Steven L. Forman, James Pierson & Jeaneth Gómez

  2. Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Morrill Science Center, 611 North Pleasant Street, Amherst, MA, 01003-9297, USA

    Julie Brigham-Grette

  3. GeoForschungs Zentrum Potsdam, Telegrafenberg Section 3.3, D-14473, Potsdam, Germany

    Norbert R. Nowaczyk

  4. Institute of Geophysics and Geology, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany

    Martin Melles

Authors
  1. Steven L. Forman
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  2. James Pierson
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  3. Jeaneth Gómez
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  4. Julie Brigham-Grette
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  5. Norbert R. Nowaczyk
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  6. Martin Melles
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Steven L. Forman.

Additional information

This is the sixth in a series of eleven papers published in this special issue dedicated to initial studies of El’gygytgyn Crater Lake and its catchment in NE Russia. Julie Brigham-Grette, Martin Melles, Pavel Minyuk were guest editors of this special issue.

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Forman, S.L., Pierson, J., Gómez, J. et al. Luminescence geochronology for sediments from Lake El’gygytgyn, northeast Siberia, Russia: constraining the timing of paleoenvironmental events for the past 200 ka. J Paleolimnol 37, 77–88 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-006-9024-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-006-9024-7

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