Decadal record of climate variability spanning the past 700 yr in the Southern Tropics of East Africa
- 1Large Lakes Observatory, University of Minnesota, 10 University Drive, Duluth, Minnesota 55812, USA
- 2Department of Fisheries and Oceans, 501 University Crescent, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N6, Canada
Abstract
Biogenic silica profiles in varved sediments from northern Lake Malawi (Nyasa), East Africa, span the past 700 yr and reflect past primary productivity in the overlying waters. On a centennial scale this has been influenced by lake level and a consequent shift in the location of high diatom productivity within the lake basin. Primary production was higher during the Little Ice Age, an arid period from about A.D. 1570 to 1850, when lake level was about 120 m lower than during the previous three centuries or the past 150 yr.
Footnotes
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↵*Present address: Harvard Forest, P.O. Box 68, Petersham, Massachusetts 01366, USA.
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- Accepted October 4, 2000.
- Received May 9, 2000.
- Revision received September 21, 2000.
- Geological Society of America
