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A Landscape-Scale Assessment of Holocene Fire Regime Controls in South-Eastern British Columbia, Canada

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A Landscape-Scale Assessment of Holocene Fire Regime Controls in South-Eastern British Columbia, Canada A landscape-scale assessment of Holocene fire regime controls in south-eastern British Columbia, Canada by Colin John Courtney Mustaphi A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Earth Sciences Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario © 2013 Colin J. Courtney Mustaphi Abstract Multiple vegetation and forest fire history records were established by analyzing Holocene-aged lake sediment stratigraphies collected across a vegetation and elevation gradient in southeast British Columbia, Canada. The stratigraphies were dated using radiometric techniques, 210Pb and 14C dating, and tephrochronology and were examined to understand the spatial controls of forest fires and how those controls varied in importance throughout the Holocene in response to orbital geometry variations, climatic change, forest composition changes, and fuel abundance within the watersheds. Local conditions have been shown to be important controls of fire activity in the region, but can be overridden by other broad-scale factors such as climate. Aspect was shown to be an important spatial control of fire frequencies at mid elevation Engelmann spruce-subalpine fir forests. At subalpine elevations, fuel abundance within the catchment was important in explaining millennial to centennial scale fire frequencies. When investigating past biomass burning, the analysis of macroscopic charcoal morphologies permits a more nuanced analysis of the temporal variability in fuel sources and taphonomic processes in a watershed. This study contributes to our knowledge of the varying spatial controls at the landscape scale of Holocene forest fires in mountainous southeastern British Columbia, to understand the influence of local and broad-scales controls of biomass burning and to the analysis of sediment-charcoal morphologies. 2 Table of Contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... 2 Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ 3 List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... 7 List of Tables ................................................................................................................................ 8 List of Acronyms and Units .......................................................................................................... 9 Preface ....................................................................................................................................... 10 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... 11 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 13 1.1 Research context and background ...................................................................................... 13 1.1.1 Research objectives ...................................................................................................... 16 1.2 Methodological approach ................................................................................................... 17 1.2.1 Lake sediment archives ................................................................................................ 17 1.2.2 Age-depth modeling ..................................................................................................... 18 1.2.3 Methods for reconstructing past vegetation ............................................................... 18 1.2.4 Methods for reconstructing past forest fire activity .................................................... 19 1.3 Thesis organisation .............................................................................................................. 21 2. Varying influence of climate and aspect as controls of montane forest fire regimes during the late Holocene, south-eastern British Columbia, Canada................................................... 22 2.1 Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 22 2.2 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 23 2.3 Materials and methods ....................................................................................................... 24 2.3.1 Study sites ..................................................................................................................... 24 2.3.2 Methods ....................................................................................................................... 26 2.4 Results ................................................................................................................................. 29 2.4.1 Chronologies ................................................................................................................. 29 2.4.2 Sedimentary charcoal ................................................................................................... 30 2.4.3 Fire histories ................................................................................................................. 30 2.5 Discussion ............................................................................................................................ 34 2.5.1 Influence of aspect on the fire regime ......................................................................... 34 2.5.2 Millennial-scale variability of fire frequency ................................................................ 37 3 2.5.3 Centennial-scale variability of fire frequency ............................................................... 38 2.6 Conclusions .......................................................................................................................... 39 2.7 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. 40 2.8 References ........................................................................................................................... 41 2.9 Supporting Information ....................................................................................................... 58 3. Holocene climate-fire-vegetation interactions at a subalpine watershed in southeastern British Columbia, Canada ..................................................................................................... 59 3.1 Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 59 3.2 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 60 3.2.1 Study site ...................................................................................................................... 63 3.3 Methods .............................................................................................................................. 65 3.3.1 Field methods ............................................................................................................... 65 3.3.2 Chronostratigraphy ...................................................................................................... 66 3.3.3 Sedimentological and paleoecological methods .......................................................... 67 3.3.4 Fire episode reconstruction .......................................................................................... 68 3.4 Results ................................................................................................................................. 69 3.4.1 Geochronology ............................................................................................................. 69 3.4.2 Lithology ....................................................................................................................... 70 3.4.3 Vegetation record ......................................................................................................... 70 3.4.4 Macroscopic charcoal record and fire-episode reconstruction ................................... 72 3.4.5 Variability of the fire regime ........................................................................................ 73 3.5 Discussion ............................................................................................................................ 74 3.5.1 Vegetation and disturbance regime interpretation ..................................................... 74 3.5.2 Comparison with other Holocene Engelmann spruce forest records .......................... 79 3.5.3 Charcoal morphology record ........................................................................................ 81 3.5.4 Varying controls of the fire regime .............................................................................. 81 3.6 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................... 83 3.7 Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. 83 3.8 References ..........................................................................................................................
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