Postglacial Diatom Stratigraphy of Kirchner Marsh, Minnesota

Abstract

Fossil diatom assemblages from a 12-m core from Kirchner Marsh were compared with modern surface assemblages from 159 Minnesota and Labrador lakes using cluster analysis. The deepest levels of the core (spruce pollen zone 13,000 to 10,200 yr B.P.) resemble modern diatom assemblages from deep oligotrophic lakes of northeastern Minnesota. Diatom assemblages of the pine pollen zone (about 10,200 to 9500 yr B.P.) have few modern analogs. In the oak zone (9500 yr B.P. to present) after a brief pulse of diatom species indicative of eutrophication, the assemblages are dominated by species characteristic of shallow lakes, suggesting a drop in the lake water level during the prairie period (5500 to 7500 yr B.P.). Macrofossil data of W. A. Watts and T. C. Winter (1966,Geological Society of America Bulletin77, 1339–1360) show that this shift to shallow-water diatoms occurred when aquatic macrophytes appeared at the site in abundance.