2006 Annual Meeting and Arctic Forum | Abstracts

Paleolimnological Perspective on Long-term Environmental Change in the Canadian High Arctic.

Marianne Douglas¹, Dermot Antoniades², Bronwyn Keatley³, Darlene Lim⁴, Neal Michelutti⁵, Roberto Quinlan⁶, John P. Smol^7
1Department of Geology, University of Toronto, 22 Russell Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 3B1, Canada, Phone 416-978-3709, Fax 416-978-3938, msvd@geology.utoronto.ca
²Centre d'Etudes Nordiques, Universite de Lavale, Department de Biologie, Pavillon Abitibi-Price, 1208, Quebec, QC, G1K 7P4, Canada, Phone 418-656-2131, dermot.antoniades@cen.laval.ca
³Department of Biology, Queen's University, 116 Barrie Street, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada, Phone 613-533-6193, Fax 613-533-6617, keatley@biology.queensu.ca
⁴Ames Research Center, National Aeronatics and Space Administration (NASA), Moffett Field, CA, USA, dlim@arc.nasa.gov
⁵Department of Geology, University of Toronto, 22 Russell Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 3B1, Canada, Phone 613-533-6000, Fax 613-533-6617, neal.michelutti@gmail.com
⁶Biology, York University, Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3, Canada, rquinlan@yorku.ca
⁷Department of Biology, Queen's University, 116 Barrie Street, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada, Phone 613-533-6147, Fax 613-533-6617, smolj@biology.queensu.ca

High arctic lakes and ponds have been shown to be critical bellwethers of environmental change. Our limnological and paleolimnological data from the Canadian High Arctic show that lakes in different settings follow different ecosystem trajectories dependent on local and regional factors such as geological and climate characteristics. This poster reviews three case studies including marked limnological changes, global transport of pollutants and archaeological applications. These demonstrate some of the exciting kinds of paleoenvironmental data that can be obtained from Arctic freshwater sediments. Given the spatial and temporal coverage, much still remains to be completed, especially given the sensitive nature of these high latitude sites.