University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Open Access Dissertations 2-2011 Lacustrine Records of Holocene Climate and Environmental Change from the Lofoten Islands, Norway Nicholas L. Balascio University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations Part of the Geochemistry Commons, Geology Commons, Geomorphology Commons, and the Geophysics and Seismology Commons Recommended Citation Balascio, Nicholas L., "Lacustrine Records of Holocene Climate and Environmental Change from the Lofoten Islands, Norway" (2011). Open Access Dissertations. 327. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/open_access_dissertations/327 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Open Access Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LACUSTRINE RECORDS OF HOLOCENE CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE FROM THE LOFOTEN ISLANDS, NORWAY A Dissertation Presented by NICHOLAS L. BALASCIO Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY February 2011 Geosciences © Copyright by Nicholas L. Balascio 2011 All Rights Reserved LACUSTRINE RECORDS OF HOLOCENE CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE FROM THE LOFOTEN ISLANDS, NORWAY A Dissertation Presented by NICHOLAS L. BALASCIO Approved as to style and content by: ____________________________________ Raymond S. Bradley, Chair ____________________________________ Julie Brigham-Grette, Member ____________________________________ Jonathan D. Woodruff, Member ____________________________________ Pierre Francus, Member ____________________________________ David P. Ahlfeld, Member __________________________________________ R. Mark Leckie, Department Head Department of Geosciences ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are a number of people that made this project possible. I first need to thank my wife, Sarah, for being completely supportive throughout this process, especially during my extended trips to field and the long hours I spent at school. Thanks Sarah for your encouragment and understanding. Also, my parents, Robert and Kathleen Balascio, and brother, Michael Balascio, who have always been supportive and who have encoruaged me to purue my interests throughout my academic career. I owe a lot to the support and guidance of my advisor, Raymond Bradley. Ray has shared with me his passion for working in the Arctic. He encouraged me to pursue additional educational experiences through short courses, workshops, and fellowships and allowed me to have a great deal of independence in pursuing this research project. Ray also provided an outstanding academic environment through his direction of the group of students and scientists at the UMass Climate System Research Center (CSRC). I had many useful discussions regarding this research with members of the CSRC, including: Billy D’Andrea, Mark Besonen, Beth Cassie, Tim Cook, Lucien von Gunten, Kinuyo Kanamaru, Ambarish Karmalkar, Frank Keimig, Sebastian Koenig, Ted Lewis, Kate Zalzal, and Zhaohui Zhang. This project involved extensive field work to survey lakes and recover sediment cores. I would like to thank those who assisted with this effort: Billy D’Andrea, Jostein Bakke, Sarah Balascio, Ray Bradley, Tim Cook, Svein Olaf Dahl, Lucien von Gunten, Bjørn Kvisvik, and Zhaohui Zhang. In addition, local logistical support and access to lakes was provided by many in Lofoten including: Sigurd Kjelstrup, Jan Steiner Johansen, Arnt Solheim, Svein-Bjarne Olsen, Per Tangen, and Finn Unstad. Field iv support was also provided by staff at the Lofotr Viking Museum, especially Geir Are Johansen, Lars Erik Narmo, and Terje Bøe who helped with logistics and participated in useful discussions, which sparked a research collaboration that I hope will continue. During this project I was awarded a U.S. Fulbright Program Fellowship and I would like to thank Svein Olaf Dahl (Bjerknes Center for Climate Research, University of Bergen) and Geir Are Johansen (Lofotr Viking Museum) for writing letters of support and sponsoring my fellowship. I would also like thank the staff of the Bjerknes Center and the U.S. Fulbright office in Oslo for all their help in making my stay possible. I worked with others to increase the scope of this research and was able to include results from additional analytical techniques with the help of Bianca Perren who analyzed diatom samples from Heimerdalsvatnet, Zhaohui Zhang processed biomarker samples from Heimerdalsvatnet, and Lucien von Gunten conducted Spectrolino spectrophotometer scans of cores from Fiskebølvatnet. I also had assistance from undergraduate students Diana Barrett and Kara Jacobacci who helped conduct some of the laboratory analyses. In learning to process tephra samples, I had many useful discussions with Jon Pilcher, Duane Froese, Mike Jercinovic, and all of the VAST (Volcanism in the Arctic System) project members. I was also fortunate to collaborate with Stephen Wickler of the Tromsø University Museum, who provided sediment samples from a Viking boathouse so we could explore a new application of tephrochronology. Finally, I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee: Julie Brigham-Grette, Pierre Francus, Jon Woodruff, and David Ahlfeld for their time and thoughtful review of this dissertation. v Funding for this project was provided by National Science Foundation Grants ARC-0714014 and ARC-0454959, and a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grant NA06OAR4310173 to Raymond Bradley, and grants that I received including a Geological Society of America Graduate Student Research Grant, a GSA Quaternary Geology & Geomorphology Division J. Hoover Mackin Research Award, a Sigma-Xi Grant-in-Aid of Research, two UMass Department of Geosciences Leo M. Hall Memorial Grants, and a U.S. Fulbright Program Fellowship. vi ABSTRACT LACUSTRINE RECORDS OF HOLOCENE CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE FROM THE LOFOTEN ISLANDS, NORWAY FEBRUARY 2011 NICHOLAS L BALASCIO, B.S., UNION COLLEGE M.S., NORTHERN ARIZONA UNIVERSITY Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Raymond S. Bradley Lakes sediments from the Lofoten Islands, Norway, can be used to generate well resolved records of past climate and environmental change. This dissertation presents three lacustrine paleoenvironmental reconstructions that show evidence for Holocene climate changes associated with North Atlantic climate dynamics and relative sea-level variations driven by glacio-isostatic adjustment. This study also uses distal tephra deposits (cryptotephra) from Icelandic volcanic eruptions to improve the chronologies of these reconstructions and explores new approaches to crypto-tephrochronology. Past and present conditions at Vikjordvatnet, Fiskebølvatnet, and Heimerdalsvatnet were studied during four field seasons conducted from 2007-2010. Initially, each lake was characterized by measuring water column chemistry, logging annual temperature fluctuations, and conducting bathymetric and seismic surveys. Sediment cores were then collected and analyzed using multiple techniques, including: sediment density, magnetic susceptibility, loss-on-ignition, total carbon and nitrogen, δ13C and δ15N of organic matter, and elemental compositions acquired by scanning X- vii ray fluorescence. Chronologies were established using radiocarbon dating and tephrochronology. A 13.8 cal ka BP record from Vikjordvatnet provides evidence for glacial activity during the Younger Dryas cold interval and exhibits trends in Ti, Fe, and organic content during the Holocene that correlate with regional millennial-scale climate trends and provide evidence for more rapid events. A 9.7 cal ka BP record from Fiskebølvatnet shows a strong signal of sediment inwashing likely driven by local geomorphic conditions, although there is evidence that increased inwashing at the onset of the Neoglacial could have been associated with increased precipitation. Heimerdalsvatnet provides a record of relative sea-level change. A 7.8 cal ka BP sedimentary record reflects changes in salinity and water column conditions as the lake was isolated and defines sea-level regression following the Tapes transgression. Cryptotephra horizons were identified in sediments of Heimerdalsvatnet, Vikjordvatnet, and Sverigedalsvatn. They were also found in a Viking-age boathouse excavated along the shore of Inner Borgpollen. These include the GA4-85, BIP-24a, SILK-N2, Askja, 860 Layer B, Hekla 1158, Hekla 1104, Vedde Ash, and Saksunarvatn tephra. This research project also explored the use of scanning XRF to locate cryptotephra in lacustrine sediments and presents experimental results of XRF scans of tephra-spiked synthetic sediment cores. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................... iv ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................... vii LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... xiii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ xv CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................