A Holocene lacustrine record in the central North Atlantic: proxies for volcanic activity, short-term NAO mode variability, and long-term precipitation changes

Lake and peat corings on three Azores islands in the central North Atlantic, resulted in the discovery of a 6000 year long lacustrine sequence in a small crater lake, Lake Caveiro, on the island of Pico. This island is dominated by Pico mountain (2351 m), Portugal's highest mountain, and the lake site is situated at 903 m asl. Two sediment profiles, one central and one littoral, were sampled. Due to large facial shifts and disconformities in the littoral cores the analyses were concentrated on the central core; only the earliest 1000 years of the littoral core were studied to complement the central profile. We used sedimentology, geochemistry, diatom analyses, magnetic properties, and multivariate statistics, together with ¹⁴C and ²¹⁰Pb dating techniques, to analyse the environmental history of the lake. Volcanic activity seems to have had a dominating impact on sediment changes and partly also on the diatom assemblages; a large number of tephras are found and seem to be connected with large (diatom) inferred pH variations. However, by a combination of methods, including multivariate techniques, we infer that precipitation changes can be detected through the volcanic noise. In the youngest part of the record (AD 1600-2000), with its decadal resolution, these humidity variations seem partly related to shifts in dominating NAO mode. The more long-term precipitation changes further back in time (350-5100 cal yr BP) roughly correspond to the well-known North Atlantic drift-ice variations as well as other North Atlantic records; low precipitation during drift-ice periods. We think these alterations were driven by changes in the thermohaline circulation as large-scale equivalences to the Great Salt Anomaly; low sea surface temperatures and changes in circulation patterns of the central North Atlantic decreased the regional precipitation. Cooler/drier periods occurred 400-800, 1300-1800, 2600-3000, 3300-3400 and possibly also 4400-4600 cal yr BP, while 300-400, 900-1000, 2000-2400, 3100-3200, 3800-4000 and 4700-5000 cal yr BP seem to have been more humid phases on the Azores.