High-Resolution Seismic Reflection Evidence for Middle HoloceneEnvironmental Change, Owasco Lake, New York

Approximately 70 km of new decimeter-resolution seismic reflection profile data from Owasco Lake, New York define a middle Holocene (∼4600 14C yr B.P.) erosion surface in the north end of the lake at water depths as great as 26 m. Beneath the lake, postglacial sediments are up to 9 m thick and represent about 10% of the total sediment fill. Early to middle Holocene sediments, ∼6 m thick, contain biogenic gas at the south end of the basin and a large (4 km× 300 m× 15 m) subaqueous slide deposit along the eastcentral portion of the lake. Late Holocene sediments are thinner or absent, particularly at the north end of the lake. The middle Holocene erosion surface may have been produced by a drop in lake level. Alternatively, it may represent a change in climate during the transition between the relatively warm Holocene hypsithermal and cool neoglacial. At this time (∼4600 14C yr B.P.) circulation in Owasco Lake appears to have evolved from sluggish to active. The increased circulation, which persists today, probably resulted from atmospheric cold fronts with strong southwesterly winds that piled up water at the north end of the lake. The increased water circulation may have been ultimately driven by decreasing insolation, which produced an increased pole-to-equator thermal gradient and, thus, stronger global winds that began at the transition between the hypsithermal and neoglacial. C © 2001 University of Washington.