Late Quaternary environmental history of Taylor Valley, southern Victoria Land, Antarctica, reconstructed by a multidisciplinary study of lake sediments [Elektronische Ressource] / vorgelegt von Sabrina Ortlepp

Late Quaternary environmental history of Taylor Valley, southern Victoria Land, Antarctica, reconstructed by a multidisciplinary study of lake sediments I n a u g u r a l - D i s s e r t a t i o n zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät der Universität zu Köln vorgelegt von Sabrina Ortlepp aus Friedrichroda Köln 2009 Berichterstatter: Prof. Dr. Martin Melles Prof. Dr. Roland Mäusbacher Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 02.07.2009 Abstract Abstract In the unglaciated areas of Antarctica, lake sediments act as archives of the regional environmental and climatic history. In most cases, the records are restricted to the Holocene. Amongst the few exceptions are lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, southern Victoria Land, which are known to have remained mostly ice-free during the Last Glacial Maximum. Within the scope of an U.S.-American-German expedition in austral summer 2002/2003, several sediment cores were recovered from the three major lakes in the Taylor Valley: lakes Fryxell, Hoare, and Bonney. In order to reconstruct the late Quaternary regional environmental and climate history, sedimentological, biogeochemical, mineralogical, and chronological investigations were conducted on the sediment sequences recovered from Lake Hoare (core Lz1020) and East Lake Bonney (core Lz1023) within the scope of this thesis.