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U UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI Date: 5-25-09 I, Justin Sirico Stroup , hereby submit this original work as part of the requirements for the degree of: Masters of Science in Geology It is entitled: Glacial Lake Ojibway, lacustrine stratigraphy and implications for drainage Justin S. Stroup Student Signature: This work and its defense approved by: Committee Chair: Dr. Thomas Lowell Dr. Andy Breckenridge Dr. Warren Huff Dr. Madeleine Briskin Approval of the electronic document: I have reviewed the Thesis/Dissertation in its final electronic format and certify that it is an accurate copy of the document reviewed and approved by the committee. Committee Chair signature: Dr. Thomas Lowell Glacial Lake Ojibway, lacustrine stratigraphy and implications for drainage By Justin Sirico Stroup B.S., Lehigh University 2007 A thesis Presented to the University of Cincinnati In partial fulfillment of the degree of Master of Science In the Department of Geology College of Arts and Sciences 2009 Committee Chair: Dr. Thomas V. Lowell ABSTRACT Some short term climate reversals on the order of centuries are perceived to be generated by coupled feed backs in individual systems. It has been hypothesized that a significant pulse of fresh deglaciated water could be responsible for the capping of the upwelling and gyre circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean consequently forcing a cooling in global temperature and a climate reversal. The catastrophic drainage of Lake Ojibway into the North Atlantic is a proposed trigger for the 8200 Cal. BP year cooling event. The objective of this study is to identify the stratigraphic signature of lake drainage and to assign some chronology to the stratigraphy. A stratigraphic record was developed based on cores from eleven lakes in transect from northeast Ontario 240 km southeast into the province of Quebec. The interpreted stratigraphy consists of a post Cochrane re-advance, ice proximal and distal sedimentation before final drainage and post drainage landscape stabilization. This stratigraphic record of Lake Ojibway provides a unique record which may be incorporated into a larger data set. Refined chronostratigraphic results may be integrated into larger studies with the objective of demonstrating a causal relationship between lake drainage, the capping of the North Atlantic circulation and a reversal in climate regime within the warmer Holocene. I II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the members of my committee, Thomas Lowell, Warren Huff, Andy Breckenridge and Madeleine Briskin for their mentorship and help in revising this manuscript. Special thanks to Joanne Ballard for discussion and help in the laboratory and to Tammy Gerke for help with XRF geochemistry. I would like to thank all those who have supported me both directly in this work and indirectly as friends. Thanks to Limnological Research Center at the University of Minnesota for help in initial core processing and to Erik Brown at the University of Minnesota, Duluth for XRF core scans. I would like to express gratitude to NSF for their support through grant number EAR0643144 and to Sigma XI and GSA for their grants for graduate research. III TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................ III List of figures .................................................................................................................... VI List of tables .................................................................................................................... VII Appendix .......................................................................................................................... IX Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 Proposed climate change triggering mechanism ....................................................... 1 Scope......................................................................................................................... 3 Background and previous Work ........................................................................................ 3 The formation of Lake Ojibway and Early works ....................................................... 3 Cochrane Re-advance ............................................................................................... 4 Methods ............................................................................................................................ 6 Site Selection and core recovery .................................................................................. 6 Analysis ........................................................................................................................ 8 Initial core processing ................................................................................................ 8 Core imaging ......................................................................................................... 8 High-resolution Magnetic Susceptibility ................................................................ 8 Density and Low Resolution Magnetic Susceptibility ............................................ 8 Gamma density ..................................................................................................... 8 Rhythmites Varves ....................................................................................................... 8 Chronology 14C dating .................................................................................................. 9 X-ray Diffraction (XRD) ................................................................................................. 9 Loss on Ignition ............................................................................................................ 9 Grain size ..................................................................................................................... 9 Sediment Chemistry X-ray Florescence .................................................................... 12 Results ............................................................................................................................ 12 Stratigraphy: Reference sections ............................................................................... 12 Physical Core descriptions ......................................................................................... 15 Higher elevation - Reid Lake ................................................................................... 15 Lower elevation - Lillabelle Lake .............................................................................. 17 Stratigraphic summary and basin correlation ............................................................. 19 IV Other cores ................................................................................................................. 19 Core analyses ............................................................................................................. 22 Magnetic susceptibility (K) and Density ................................................................... 22 Loss on ignition ........................................................................................................ 22 XRF Chemistry ........................................................................................................ 24 Chronology 14C ........................................................................................................ 27 Investigation of the pellet unit ..................................................................................... 30 Pellet unit summary and discussion ........................................................................... 33 Investigation of the laminated unit .............................................................................. 36 Laminated unit summary and discussion ................................................................... 39 Discussion ....................................................................................................................... 40 Stratigraphy leading up to the Cochrane re-advance ................................................. 40 Stratigraphy above the Cochrane up to drainage ....................................................... 40 Identification of drainage ............................................................................................ 44 Drainage hypotheses .................................................................................................. 45 Conclusions .................................................................................................................... 46 References Cited ............................................................................................................ 48 Appendix ......................................................................................................................... 50 V List of figures Fig 1. Study area location and background .................................................................. 2 Fig 2. Idealized stratigraphy ......................................................................................... 5 Fig 3. Reconstructed digital elevation model (DEM) for isostatic rebound ................... 7 Fig 4. Reconstructed paleo water depth model .......................................................... 11 Fig 5. Image of varve, pellet, and laminated units ...................................................... 13 Fig 6. Simplified