Randy W. Dirszowsky

Weathering rinds as mirror images of palaeosols: examples from the Western Alps with correlation to Antarctica and Mars

Weathering rinds have been used for decades as relative age indicators to differentiate glacial deposits in long Quaternary sequences, but only recently has it been shown that rinds contain long and extensive palaeoenvironmental records that often extend far beyond mere repositories of chemical weathering on both Earth and Mars. When compared with associated palaeosols in deposits of the same age, rinds often carry a zonal weathering record that can be correlated with palaeosol horizon characteristics, with respect to both abiotic and biotic parameters. As demonstrated with examples from the French and Italian Alps, rinds in coarse clastic sediment contain weathering zones that correlate closely with horizon development in associated palaeosols of presumed Late Glacial age. In addition to weathering histories in both rinds and palaeosols, considerable evidence exists to indicate that the black mat impact (12.8 ka) reached the European Alps, a connection with the Younger Dryas readvance supported by both mineral and chemical composition. Preliminary metagenomic microbial analysis using density gradient gel electrophoresis suggests that the eubacterial microbial population found in at least one Ah palaeosol horizon associated with a rind impact site is different from that in other Late Glacial and Younger Dryas surface palaeosol horizons.

Evolution of the Moose Lake Delta, British Columbia: implications for Holocene environmental change in the Canadian Rocky Mountains

Abstract Reconstruction of the geomorphic history of the Moose Lake delta is used to infer environmental change in the uppermost Fraser River watershed, British Columbia. Delta-top changes are interpreted from surface channel morphology, riverbank exposures, hand auger data, vibracores and other borehole records. River channel and overbank sediments are related to source area contributions in terms of granule lithology and fine (

A Microbial Link to Weathering of Postglacial Rocks and Sediments, Mount Viso Area, Western Alps, Demonstrated through Analysis of a Soil/Paleosol Bio/Chronosequence

Understanding the mechanism associated with rates of weathering and evolution of rocks→sediment→soil→paleosol in alpine environments raises questions related to the impact of microbial mediation versus various diverse abiotic chemical/physical processes, even including the overall effect of cosmic impact/airburst during the early stage of weathering in Late Glacial (LG) deposits. This study is of a chronosequence of soils/paleosols, with an age range that spans the post–Little Ice Age (post-LIA; <150 yr), the Little Ice Age (LIA; AD 1500–1850), the middle Neoglacial (∼3 ka)–Younger Dryas (YD; <12.8 ka), and the LG (<15 ka). The goal is to elicit trends in weathering, soil morphogenesis, and related eubacterial population changes over the past 13–15 k.yr. The older LG/YD paleosols in the sequence represent soil morphogenesis that started during the closing stage of Pleistocene glaciation. These are compared with undated soils of mid- to late Neoglacial age, the youngest of LIA and post-LIA age. All profiles formed in a uniform parent material of metabasalt composition and in moraine, rockfall, protalus, and alluvial fan deposits. Elsewhere in Europe, North America, and Asia, the cosmic impact/airburst event at 12.8 ka often produced a distinctive, carbon-rich “black mat” layer that shows evidence of high-temperature melting. At this alpine site, older profiles of similar LG age contain scorched and melted surface sediments that are otherwise similar in composition to the youngest/thinnest profiles developing in the catchment today. Moreover, microbial analysis of the sediments offers new insight into the genesis of these sediments: the C and Cu (u = unweathered) horizons in LG profiles present at 12.8 ka (now Ah/Bw) show bacterial population structures that differ markedly from recent alluvial/protalus sample bacterial populations. We propose here that these differences are, in part, a direct consequence of the age/cosmic impact/weathering processes that have occurred in the chronosequence. Of the several questions that emerge from these sequences, perhaps the most important involve the interaction of biotic-mineral factors, which need to be understood if we are to generally fully appreciate the role played by microbes in rock weathering.

Recent Developments in the Analysis of the Black Mat Layer and Cosmic Impact at 12.8 ka

Abstract Recent analyses of sediment samples from “black mat” sites in outh merica and urope support previous interpretations of an impact event that reversed the Late Glacial demise of ice during the Bølling Allerød warming, resulting in a resurgence of ice termed the Younger Dryas (YD) cooling episode. The breakup or impact of a cosmic vehicle at the boundary coincides with the onset of a 1‐kyr long interval of glacial resurgence, one of the most studied events of the Late Pleistocene. New analytical databases reveal a corpus of data indicating that the cosmic impact was a real event, most possibly a cosmic airburst from Earths encounter with the Taurid Complex comet or unknown asteroid, an event that led to cosmic fragments exploding interhemispherically over widely dispersed areas, including the northern ndes of enezuela and the Alps on the Italian/French frontier. While the databases in the two areas differ somewhat, the overall interpretation is that microtextural evidence in weathering rinds and in sands of associated paleosols and glaciofluvial deposits carry undeniable attributes of melted glassy carbon and e spherules, planar deformation features, shock‐melted and contorted quartz, occasional transition and platinum metals, and brecciated and impacted minerals of diverse lithologies. In concert with other black mat localities in the Western , the etherlands, coastal rance, yria, entral sia, eru, rgentina and exico, it appears that a widespread cosmic impact by an asteroid or comet is responsible for deposition of the black mat at the onset of the glacial event. Whether or not the impact caused a 1‐kyr interval of glacial climate depends upon whether or not the Earth had multiple centuries‐long episodic encounters with the Taurid Complex or asteroid remnants; impact‐related changes in microclimates sustained climatic forcing sufficient to maintain positive mass balances in the reformed ice; and/or inertia in the Atlantic thermohaline circulation system persisted for 1-kyr.

TESTING LAKE SEDIMENT AND DENDROGEOMORPHIC PROXIES FOR LITTLE ICE AGE ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE IN THE UPPER FRASER RIVER AREA, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA

Abstract. This study assesses Little Ice Age (LIA) lake sediment morphological and geochemical records and moraine chronologies in the upper Fraser River watershed, British Columbia, Canada, to resolve differences in paleoenvironmental interpretation and to clarify sediment production and sediment delivery processes within alpine geomorphic systems. Moose Lake (13.9 km2), situated at 1032 m a.s.l., contains a partially varved record indicating variable rates of accumulation during the last millennium that, in general, coincide with previously documented LIA glacial advances in the region and locally. Dendrochronological assessment of forefield surfaces in the headwaters of the catchment (Reef Icefield) shows that periods of moraine construction occurred just prior to ad 1770, ad 1839 and ad 1883, and some time before ad 1570. Taken collectively, increases in varve thickness within eight Moose Lake sediment cores coincide with documented glacier advances over the twelfth through fourteenth centuries, the eighteenth century, and nineteenth through twentieth centuries. Glacial activity during the sixteenth century is also indicated. While varve thickness variations in proximal and distal sediments clearly reflect glacial activity upstream of Moose Lake, the intermediate varve record is relatively insensitive to these decadal and longer‐term catchment processes. Variations in Ca and related elements derived from glaciated carbonate terrain within the Moose River sub‐catchment (including Reef Icefield) indicate gradually increasing delivery from these sources from the twelfth through twentieth centuries even where the varve thickness record is unresponsive. Elevated carbonate concentrations confirm glacial activity c. ad 1200, ad 1500, ad 1750, and ad 1900.