NWT RESEARCH DATABASE

Regions: Gwich'in Settlement Area

Tags: sedimentology, paleoecology, paleoenvironment, biodiversity, paleogeology

Objective(s): To recover lake sediments in the form of lake sediment cores in order to analyse the deposited signals and reconstruct past vegetation and biodiversity changes.

Project Description: This licence has been issued for the scientific research application No. 5941. Our aim for this study would be to better understand the climate history and paleoecological since the last glacial maximum at the margin of glaciated regions and to help compare regions between formerly glaciated and unglaciated regions in terms of changes in biodiversity, the movement of the tree line and the effects of fire on vegetation over time. The environment leaves an imprint of its surroundings that is deposited in the sediment of the lake, such as pollen grains from vegetation, which allow us to gain information about changes in vegetation in the wider lake environment or the chemical composition of the sediment which allows to draw conclusions about environmental changes. Our main goal would be to recover these lake sediments in the form of lake sediment cores in order to analyse the deposited signals and reconstruct past vegetation changes. If granted permission, and in order to retrieve lake sediment cores, we would do an echo sounding survey from a small inflatable boat to generate a bathymetric map to find out about the sediment infill of the lake basin. Depending on the sediment infill we would then set up a sampling platform with a sampling tripod (UWITEC piston coring system) and collect lake sediment cores in 9 cm (3,5 inch) wide plastic tubes. We would also like to collect lake surface water samples for chemical analyses of the modern lake. The samples would be opened in the lab and radiocarbon dated to know their age. Further analyses would be grain-size, organic carbon, diatoms microfossils (winter ice cover signal), chironomid microfossils (summer water temperature), pollen (summer air temperature and precipitation) and diatom oxygen isotopes (multidecadal mean temperature and hydroclimate) in the laboratories of Alfred Wegener Institute (Germany) in collaboration with our partners at the Simon Fraser University. We already started to reach out to the community organizations and emailed them about our wish to sample the two lakes for research purposes. We approached the involved community organizations with descriptions of the project and field work incl. a map of the possible lakes which we hope to sample. We hope to hear back from interested members of the communities in the region and wish for an interactive exchange. We would be happy to also address smaller research questions from the communities and stakeholders which we can approach with our methods and equipment. It would be great if we could be accompanied by a local wildlife monitor with whom we can also exchange ideas and knowledge. Ideally maybe a research assistant could also accompany us with whom we can discuss about methods and who knows the area and a safe way to the lake and would be able to drive (or bring) an ATV to move. During field work we can use social media channels for documentation if wished for by stakeholders and the community organizations and the institute website for informing the public about the project and the outcome. After the expedition we would be happy to share first results with the communities and can also enable the data exchange. A field report will be published in Reports on Polar and Marine Research (https://www.awi.de/en/about-us/publications/reports-on-polar-and-marine-research.html); All data collected during the project period and the involved field work will be publicly available on the platform PANGAEA (https://www.pangaea.de/); The research results will be presented at international conferences. Manuscripts based on the research will be priorily submitted to Open Access journals to allow public accession and we will send these outcomes to the communities. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from: August 02 - August 23, 2024