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A combined biogeochemical and paleobotanical approach to study permafrost environments and past dynamics

Ronkainen, T.; Väliranta, M.; McClymont, E.L.; Biasi, C.; Salonen, S.; Fontana, S.; Tuittila, E.-S.

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Authors

T. Ronkainen

M. Väliranta

C. Biasi

S. Salonen

S. Fontana

E.-S. Tuittila



Abstract

When investigating past peatland processes and related carbon cycle dynamics, it is essential to identify and separate different peat environments: bogs, fens and permafrost, and their historical plant assemblages. Bog peat layers contain relatively well-preserved plant material for palaeoecological examination, whereas fen and permafrost peats are often highly humified, which in turn constrains reconstructions of past plant assemblages. Here, we analysed the chemical composition of arctic peat plateau plants to create a local reference training-set of plant biomarkers. We then combined palaeobotanical, biogeochemical and chronological analyses to one permafrost peat sequence collected from the East European Russian tundra (67°03′N, 62°57′E) to investigate past peatland dynamics and to evaluate the performance of the biomarker method in a highly decomposed permafrost environment. The results show that the chronologically constrained macrofossil analysis provided most of the essential information about the peatland succession. However, a more robust reconstruction of the past peatland dynamics was achieved by combining palaeobotanical and biogeochemical data sets. The similarity of the lipid biomarker distributions of the arctic and boreal peatland plants also implies that any established modern biomarker training-set of peatland plants could be applied universally to palaeoecological studies on peat sediments.

Citation

Ronkainen, T., Väliranta, M., McClymont, E., Biasi, C., Salonen, S., Fontana, S., & Tuittila, E. (2015). A combined biogeochemical and paleobotanical approach to study permafrost environments and past dynamics. Journal of Quaternary Science, 30(3), 189-200. https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.2763

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Dec 23, 2014
Online Publication Date Apr 23, 2015
Publication Date Apr 23, 2015
Deposit Date Mar 3, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Journal of Quaternary Science
Print ISSN 0267-8179
Electronic ISSN 1099-1417
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 30
Issue 3
Pages 189-200
DOI https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.2763
Keywords Biomarker, Fen, Macrofossil, n-alkane, Peat plateau, Permafrost.

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Copyright Statement
This is the accepted version of the following article: Ronkainen, T., Väliranta, M., McClymont, E.L., Biasi, C., Salonen, S., Fontana, S. & Tuittila, E.-S. (2015), A combined biogeochemical and palaeobotanical approach to study permafrost environments and past dynamics. Journal of Quaternary Science, 30(3): 189-200, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jqs.2763. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.





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