Organic carbon signatures of the middle-late quaternary lacustrine history of tropical South China

Abstract

In order to reconstruct a long-time tropical terrestrial record of Asian monsoon in South China, the organic carbon in a 120 m lacustrine sediments from Maar Lake Tianyang was analyzed. Results in TOC, C/N and δ13C value show two lines of variations: (1) from a deep lake environment below 42 m to a shallow lake environment of the upper 42 m, (2) environmental changes between glacial and interglacial conditions throughout the lacustrine sediment sequence. In the shallow lake stage, δ13C values change according to glacial and interglacial periods, comparable with other proxies such as pollen, TOC and magnetic susceptibility. However, variations of these proxies including δ13C values are suppressed in the deep lake sequence, a result of the exceptionally high in-situ aquatic (diatom) productivity within this tropical lake. To differentiate the internal productivity and terrigenous high plant input for the deep lake sequence, a three-end-member model (diatom, C3 and C4 land plants) was developed. The result helps extract further information from the deep lake sequence that reveals both the autochthonous productivity caused by lake-level and terrestrial changes by external forcing mechanisms.

The n-alkanes indexes from 115 selected samples show distinctive distributions of various chain-length homologues. Most n-alkane indexes (e.g. Paq, CPI and ACL) show more frequent fluctuations than organic carbon records, implying other environmental alterations within the glacial and interglacial periods. Most n-alkanes indexes show a clear relationship with the palaeoclimate history, but further comparison of individual compound concentrations to other environmental indexes (pollen and δ13C values) suggests that n-C29 is a better index of tree concentration while n-C31 has alternative source from flowering trees instead of grasses. Unique appearance of hopanes in the deep lake sediments suggests high activity of methanotrophic bacteria in chemocline.

The examination of GDGT concentration from 130 samples indicates pH, temperature and evolution of archaea and bacteria communities. Complications in the interpretation and correction of GDGT results are also discussed and several alternative corrections for palaeo-temperature reconstruction are provided for further investigations. According to both n-alkane and GDGT results, the sediment sequence contains mainly three different stages: the aquatic mixing community (Crenarchaeota and methanotrophic bacteria) from the bottom to 78m; the aquatic methanotrophic community (Euryarchaeota and methanotrophic bacteria); the terrestrial aerobic community (aerobic bacteria).