TY - JOUR
T1 - Response of a low elevation carbonate lake in the Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico) to climatic and human forcings
AU - Metcalfe, Sarah E.
AU - Holmes, Jonathan A.
AU - Jones, Matthew D.
AU - Gonzalez, Roger Medina
AU - Primmer, Nicholas J.
AU - Dyrzo, Haydar Martinez
AU - Davies, Sarah J.
AU - Leng, Melanie J.
N1 - Funding Information:
NERC 14C allocation 1724.0713, Dr. Handong Yang, UCL (210Pb dating), NERC grants NE/K00610X/1 and NE/K004611/1 (Climate Variability over the circum-Caribbean region during the past 1200 years from oxygen isotope analyses of lake sediments), NERC NIGFSC IP-1812-0618 and IP-1394-1113, Santander Travel Fund award (University of Nottingham) (to SEM and MDJ), NERC Envision DTP studentship NE/L002604/1 (to SEM and MDJ for Nicholas Primmer), Dr. David Wahl USGS/UC Berkeley (Puerto Arturo data), Prof. Tapio Schneider CalTech for providing the NH-SH hemisphere temperature contrast data from Marcott et al. (2013), Prof. David Hodell University of Cambridge (Aguada X'Caamal data), Gemma Harwood (charcoal data), Mark Stevenson (pigment data), Prof. Walter Witschey Cook-Cole College of Arts and Sciences (shapefiles with Maya site data for the area around Yaal Chac). Other data sets were obtained from the IGBP/PAGES World Data Center for Palaeoclimatology. SEM would like to thank Dr. Mark Brenner University of Florida at Gainesville for many valuable exchanges about the lakes of the Yucatan and carbonates in particular. SEM and MDJ would also like to acknowledge the contributions of UoN Quaternary Environments students who got this work started.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors
PY - 2022/4/15
Y1 - 2022/4/15
N2 - The importance of climate change, specifically drought, across the Maya region in the northern Neotropics, remains a topic of lively debate. Part of this discussion hinges on the coherency of response to climatic variability across different archives and proxies. In this paper we present a 6600-year palaeolimnological record from Yaal Chac, a carbonate lake (known locally as a cenote) in the northern lowlands of the Yucatan Peninsula, < 2 km from the location of the previously published Aguada X'Caamal record. The Yaal Chac sequence has been analysed for loss-on-ignition (LOI), stable isotopes (δ18O, δ13C) and elemental analysis using μXRF, complemented by some mineralogical, charcoal and pigment data. Mid Holocene sediments, predating evidence of human impact, are carbonate dominated and finely laminated. δ18O values are positive (>2‰), but show no covariation with δ13C. A major transition occurs at ca. 4360 cal yr BP, with a change to generally more organic sediments and increased variability in all proxies. Although direct evidence for anthropogenic activity in the Yaal Chac catchment is limited, it seems feasible that human impact was affecting the system. Comparison with other records from the Northern Maya lowlands and the wider region shows little coherence in the mid Holocene, when Yaal Chac seems to have been quite stable, but possibly responsive to increased climatic seasonality, driving the production of seasonal laminae. In the late Holocene, when the climate was generally more variable, there is more coherence between Yaal Chac and other regional records, including the so called Pan Caribbean Dry Period (3500–2500 cal yr BP) and the droughts of the late Pre-Classic period (1800–1600 cal yr BP). The Yaal Chac record shows no evidence of drought at the time of either the Maya ‘hiatus’ or the Maya ‘collapse’ of the Terminal Classic, but does record drying from the 14th to 19th centuries CE, in keeping with other proxy and historical records. This new record from Yaal Chac highlights the spatial variability of responses to climate forcings and the importance of recognising individual system sensitivity.
AB - The importance of climate change, specifically drought, across the Maya region in the northern Neotropics, remains a topic of lively debate. Part of this discussion hinges on the coherency of response to climatic variability across different archives and proxies. In this paper we present a 6600-year palaeolimnological record from Yaal Chac, a carbonate lake (known locally as a cenote) in the northern lowlands of the Yucatan Peninsula, < 2 km from the location of the previously published Aguada X'Caamal record. The Yaal Chac sequence has been analysed for loss-on-ignition (LOI), stable isotopes (δ18O, δ13C) and elemental analysis using μXRF, complemented by some mineralogical, charcoal and pigment data. Mid Holocene sediments, predating evidence of human impact, are carbonate dominated and finely laminated. δ18O values are positive (>2‰), but show no covariation with δ13C. A major transition occurs at ca. 4360 cal yr BP, with a change to generally more organic sediments and increased variability in all proxies. Although direct evidence for anthropogenic activity in the Yaal Chac catchment is limited, it seems feasible that human impact was affecting the system. Comparison with other records from the Northern Maya lowlands and the wider region shows little coherence in the mid Holocene, when Yaal Chac seems to have been quite stable, but possibly responsive to increased climatic seasonality, driving the production of seasonal laminae. In the late Holocene, when the climate was generally more variable, there is more coherence between Yaal Chac and other regional records, including the so called Pan Caribbean Dry Period (3500–2500 cal yr BP) and the droughts of the late Pre-Classic period (1800–1600 cal yr BP). The Yaal Chac record shows no evidence of drought at the time of either the Maya ‘hiatus’ or the Maya ‘collapse’ of the Terminal Classic, but does record drying from the 14th to 19th centuries CE, in keeping with other proxy and historical records. This new record from Yaal Chac highlights the spatial variability of responses to climate forcings and the importance of recognising individual system sensitivity.
KW - Drought
KW - Holocene
KW - Inorganic geochemistry
KW - Maya
KW - North America
KW - Palaeoclimatology
KW - Palaeolimnology
KW - Stable isotopes
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85126337493&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107445
DO - 10.1016/j.quascirev.2022.107445
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85126337493
SN - 0277-3791
VL - 282
JO - Quaternary Science Reviews
JF - Quaternary Science Reviews
M1 - 107445
ER -