The laminated sediments of Loch Ness, Scotland: Preliminary report on the construction of a chronology of sedimentation and its potential use in assessing Holocene climatic variability

Two sediment cores, ca. 6 m long, have been recovered from the north basin of Loch Ness, Scotland. Each consists of ca. 4.5 m of laminated gyttja, terminating in a basal grey, unlaminated clay. A suite of three ¹⁴C AMS dates have been obtained, and place the base of the gyttja at ca. 9500 yr B.P. Investigations into the structure, composition and formation of the laminae are in progress. Analysis by Backscatter Scanning Electron Microscopy (BSEM) has demonstrated that they consist of couplets comprising dark, clay-rich sediments thought to be deposited from spring to autumn, and pale, silt-rich layers believed to represent sedimentation through winter. The laminae are thus thought to record incidence and intensity of streamflow into the Loch over the past nine millennia, and thus illustrate environmental change over the region for most of the Holocene. X-ray densitometry has been utilised in order to count the laminations and test the hypothesis that they are varves. It has, however, proved difficult to obtain a continuous sequence of countable laminations, although it has been possible to construct a fragmented, floating chronology which indicates that the hypothesis may be correct. Examination of lamination thickness reveals that although the average rate of sedimentation throughout the time periods studied seems to have remained fairly constant, significant variations have occurred. As Loch Ness is located on the northwest oceanic fringe of Europe, any climatic signal which the laminations contain will be closely related to even larger scale events over and within the North Atlantic Ocean, which is a major controller of global climate. Preliminary statistical investigation of sequences of laminae is being carried out in order to search for periodicity of sedimentation which may then be related to appropriate climatic indices.