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2.8 million years of climate data lurking in Russian lake
“Data desert” has a record much older than 800,000 year-old Antartic ice core.
2.8 million years of climate data lurking in Russian lake | Ars Technica
by Scott K. Johnson- June 21 2012, 11:20am PDT
Jens Karls
If you thought Iceland’s volcano that erupted in 2010—Eyjafjallajökull—was hard to pronounce, avert your eyes. A unique new record of arctic climate has just been published from Russia’s Lake El’gygytgyn— or as many researchers despairingly call it, “Lake E.”
The 550 ft deep lake fills an impact crater that formed nearly 3.6 million years ago. Since then, the lake has dutifully collected sediment that washed in from the small basin surrounding it. The area has been spared the abuse of ice sheets, as well, which tend to disturb accumulated sediments and sometimes scrape them away altogether.
Since the lake is nutrient-poor and covered with ice for much of the year, the water is clear and oxygen-rich. But conditions change along with climate, and that’s what makes the lake appealing to paleoclimate researchers. Such lengthy records of climate are incredibly rare above sea level. Ice cores from Greenland only go back around 125,000 years, and the longest Antarctic ice core completed records around 800,000 years.
Forum copyright policy, to be found HERE, prohibits the posting of pieces in their entirety.
~Oddball
“Data desert” has a record much older than 800,000 year-old Antartic ice core.
2.8 million years of climate data lurking in Russian lake | Ars Technica
by Scott K. Johnson- June 21 2012, 11:20am PDT
Jens Karls
If you thought Iceland’s volcano that erupted in 2010—Eyjafjallajökull—was hard to pronounce, avert your eyes. A unique new record of arctic climate has just been published from Russia’s Lake El’gygytgyn— or as many researchers despairingly call it, “Lake E.”
The 550 ft deep lake fills an impact crater that formed nearly 3.6 million years ago. Since then, the lake has dutifully collected sediment that washed in from the small basin surrounding it. The area has been spared the abuse of ice sheets, as well, which tend to disturb accumulated sediments and sometimes scrape them away altogether.
Since the lake is nutrient-poor and covered with ice for much of the year, the water is clear and oxygen-rich. But conditions change along with climate, and that’s what makes the lake appealing to paleoclimate researchers. Such lengthy records of climate are incredibly rare above sea level. Ice cores from Greenland only go back around 125,000 years, and the longest Antarctic ice core completed records around 800,000 years.
Forum copyright policy, to be found HERE, prohibits the posting of pieces in their entirety.
~Oddball
