Changing climate and sea level alter Hg mobility at Lake Tulane, Florida, U.S.

Between 45,000 cal years BP and the beginning of the Holocene, the accumulation rate for Hg in sediments of Lake Tulane, Florida ranged from ≈2 to 10 µg m(-2) yr(-1), compared with 53 µg Hg m(-2) yr(-1) in the 1985-1990 period of anthropogenic input. The locality experienced regional draw-down of the water table during the Wisconsinan glaciation, which lowered global sea level by nearly 130 m. Natural atmospheric deposition of Hg to the surrounding area resulted in long-term (ca. 100,000 years) sequestration of this atmospheric flux of Hg, primarily by adsorption in the oxic Al- and Fe-hydroxide-rich sandy subsoil. Global sea level rise during deglaciation led to a rising regional water table, flooding the oxidized soils surrounding Tulane. Iron and adsorbed Hg were mobilized by reductive dissolution and transported by groundwater flow to Lake Tulane and ultimately to the accumulating sediment. The accumulation rate of Hg (and Fe) increased rapidly about 16,000 cal years BP, peaked at nearly 60 µg Hg m(-2) yr(-1) ca. 13,000-14,000 cal years BP, declined sharply during the Younger Dryas, and then increased sharply to a second 60 µg Hg m(-2) yr(-1) peak about 5000 cal years BP. Thereafter, it declined nearly to background by 900 cal years BP. In similar geologic situations, rapid modern sea level rise will initiate this process globally, and may mobilize large accumulations of Hg and lesser amounts of As, and other redox sensitive metals to groundwater and surface water.

Paleoecological assessment of watershed history in PRIMENet watersheds at Acadia National Park, USA.

Paleoecological reconstructions of forest stand histories for two upland watersheds at Acadia National Park in Maine were completed to support related watershed chemistry studies. The project hypothesis was that forest type and fire history influence long-term cycling and storage of atmospheric mercury and nitrogen within watersheds. The reconstructions document differences in major vegetation composition and disturbance between the burned and unburned watersheds during the past several centuries. Pollen and charcoal stratigraphies from organic sediment accumulations in forested wet depressions indicate that the present experimental design of contrasting disturbance and forest histories has persisted during recent centuries. The unburned watershed has been dominated by spruce (Picea rubens) and fir (Abies balsamea) for 500 years or more and has not recently burned or been substantially cleared. The burned watershed is dominated by a heterogeneous forest of patchy hardwood, mixed wood, and softwood stands. A large portion of this watershed burned severely in 1947 and probably more than once in the 1800s, and has supported heterogeneous successional forests for 200 years or longer. Overall, these results support the underlying premise that the experimental design of this watershed research can be used to infer landscape controls on biogeochemical processes.

Interhemispheric climate links revealed by late-glacial cooling episode in southern Chile.

Understanding the relative timings of climate events in the Northern and Southern hemispheres is a prerequisite for determining the causes of abrupt climate changes. But climate records from the Patagonian Andes and New Zealand for the period of transition from glacial to interglacial conditions--about 14.6-10 kyr before present, as determined by radiocarbon dating--show varying degrees of correlation with similar records from the Northern Hemisphere. It is necessary to resolve these apparent discrepancies in order to be able to assess the relative roles of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets and oceanic, atmospheric and astronomical influences in initiating climate change in the late-glacial period. Here we report pollen records from three sites in the Lake District of southern Chile (41 degrees S) from which we infer conditions similar to modern climate between about 13 and 12.2 14C kyr before present (BP), followed by cooling events at about 12.2 and 11.4 14C kyr BP, and then by a warming at about 9.8 14C kyr BP. These events were nearly synchronous with important palaeoclimate changes recorded in the North Atlantic region, supporting the idea that interhemispheric linkage through the atmosphere was the primary control on climate during the last deglaciation. In other regions of the Southern Hemisphere, where climate events are not in phase with those in the Northern Hemisphere, local oceanic influences may have counteracted the effects that propagated through the atmosphere.

A 50,000-year record of climate oscillations from Florida and its temporal correlation with the heinrich events.

Oscillations of Pinus (pine) pollen in a 50,000-year sequence from Lake Tulane, Florida, indicate that there were major vegetation shifts during the last glacial cycle. Episodes of abundant Pinus populations indicate a climate that was more wet than intervening phases dominated by Quercus (oak) and Ambrosia-type (ragweed and marsh-elder). The Pinus episodes seem to be temporally correlated with the North Atlantic Heinrich events, which were massive, periodic advances of ice streams from the eastern margin of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Possible links between the Tulane Pinus and Heinrich events include hemispheric cooling, the influences of Mississippi meltwater on sea-surface temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico, and the effects of North Atlantic thermohaline circulation on currents in the Gulf.