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Holocene hydro-climatic change and effects on carbon accumulation inferred from a peat bog in the Attawapiskat River watershed, Hudson Bay Lowlands, Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2012

Joan Bunbury ,
Sarah A. Finkelstein  and
Jörg Bollmann
Joan Bunbury*
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G3
Sarah A. Finkelstein
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G3
Jörg Bollmann
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, University of Toronto, 22 Russell Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 3B1
*
⁎Corresponding author. Fax: + 1 416 946 3886. Email Address:[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
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Abstract

Multiple proxies from a 319-cm peat core collected from the Hudson Bay Lowlands, northern Ontario, Canada were analyzed to determine how carbon accumulation has varied as a function of paleohydrology and paleoclimate. Testate amoeba assemblages, analysis of peat composition and humification, and a pollen record from a nearby lake suggest that isostatic rebound and climate may have influenced peatland growth and carbon dynamics over the past 6700 cal yr BP. Long-term apparent rates of carbon accumulation ranged between 8.1 and 36.7 g C m− 2 yr− 1 (average = 18.9 g C m− 2 yr− 1). The highest carbon accumulation estimates were recorded prior to 5400 cal yr BP when a fen existed at this site, however following the fen-to-bog transition carbon accumulation stabilized. Carbon accumulation remained relatively constant through the Neoglacial period after 2400 cal yr BP when pollen-based paleoclimate reconstructions from a nearby lake (McAndrews et al., 1982) and reconstructions of the depth to the water table derived from testate amoeba data suggest a wetter climate. More carbon accumulated per unit time between 1000 and 600 cal yr BP, coinciding in part with the Medieval Climate Anomaly.

Keywords

PaleohydrologyPaleoecologyQuantitative reconstructionsNorthern peatlandsMedieval Climate Anomaly
Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 78 , Issue 2 , September 2012 , pp. 275 - 284
Copyright
University of Washington

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