Alpine lakes’ sedimentary archives have a good potential for climatic signals due to their isolated locations and simple ecosystems. Anatolia, Turkey hosts large extents of mountainous regions with several Alpine lakes, however no paleoecolgical investigations have been carried out so far. We conducted palaeoecological samplings in 13 Alpine lakes at Bolkar Mountains, southeast Turkey in 2020 and 2022. The lakes are located between 1538 and 2911 m a.s.l. The lakes were small (0.11-6.96 one lake 34.7 ha) and generally shallow (0.2-12.3, one lake 20.3 m). The lake catchments were small and covered with limestone rocks and alpine vegetation. The lakes were sampled for main ecological characteristics and three long cores (1, 1.2, 1.6. m) and seven short cores (< 0.5 m) were collected. The long cores were scanned with XRF, sliced for 0.5 cm and analysed for loss of ignition (LOI), C & N content as well as diatom and pollen remains. Preliminary dating based on Pb210 and Cs317 radioisotopes suggested that the long cores may represent a time period 2000 years before present. LOI, Ca/Ti and Mn/Fe stratigraphy of the long cores suggested alternating periods of high and low productivity and water level. Overall, the preliminary data on the cores indicates a dynamic shifts in these alpine lake ecosystems in the recent past.

Authors:

HASAN ARSLAN, Middle East Technical University  (hasanarslan318@gmail.com)

Demet Biltekin, Istanbul Technical University  (demetbiltekin@gmail.com)

Cüneyd Nadir Solak, Dumlupınar University  (cnsolak@gmail.com)

Kürşad Kadir Eriş, Istanbul Technical University  (kursadkadire@gmail.com)

Korhan Özkan, Middle East Technical University  (korhan.ozkan@gmail.com)