Abstract
Despite their direct links to human use, reservoirs are not widely utilised, relative to natural lakes, for deriving sediment histories. One explanation is the complex sedimentation patterns observed in water storages. Here a highly unusual combination of sedimentary records is used to determine the sedimentation history of Kangaroo Creek Reservoir, South Australia. We compare contiguous high resolution (0.5 cm sampling interval) diatom records from an almost 1.3 m core extracted from the bottom of the reservoir and from a 0.4 m monolith of sediment perched 15 m above the reservoir bottom on a disused bridge that was submerged following initial reservoir filling in 1970. The diatom histories are supplemented by evidence provided by other indicators, most notably radionuclide concentrations and ratios. Interestingly, despite the fact that the reservoir has been >20 m deep for more than 70% of its recorded history, distinct sections of the reservoir bottom core, but not the bridge monolith, are dominated by non-planktonic diatoms. We attribute the occurrences of these phases to inflows that occur following heavy catchment rains at times when the reservoir is drawn down. These characteristic sections have, in turn, been used to refine the site’s chronology. Despite having a length of almost 1.3 m, a variety of data suggests that the core has not recovered pre-reservoir sediment, but rather spans the period from 1981 (11 years after first filling) to 2001, when the core was extracted. It is clear, therefore, that sediments in the bottom of the reservoir are accumulating rapidly (>7 cm year−1), although more than 40% of this deposition occurs in less than 5% of the time. It appears that in the period 1996–2001, quiescent sedimentation rates, both in the perched bridge locality and on the reservoir bottom, slowed in response to reduced stream flow. Our findings indicate that, with caution, complex patterns of sedimentation in water storages can be disentangled. However, it was difficult to precisely correlate diatom sequences from the two records even in periods of quiescent sedimentation, suggesting that reservoir bottom diatom sequences should be interpreted with considerable caution. Furthermore, while storm-derived inflows such as those identified may deliver a substantial proportion of sediment and phosphorus load to storages, the ensuing deposition patterns may render much of the phosphorus unavailable to the overlying waters.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anon (2000) Torrens Catchment Management Plan. Torrens Catchment Modelling. Tonkin Consulting, Adelaide
Appleby PG (2001) Chronostratigraphic techniques in recent sediments. In: Last WM, Smol JP (eds) Tracking environmental change using lake sediments, vol 1: basin analysis, coring and chronological techniques. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp 171–204
Appleby PG, Oldfield F (1978) The calculation of lead-210 dates assuming a constant rate of supply of unsupported 210Pb to the sediment. Catena 5:1–8. doi:10.1016/S0341-8162(78)80002-2
Appleby PG, Oldfield F (1992) Application of lead-210 to sedimentation studies. In: Ivanovich M, Harmon RS (eds) Uranium-series disequilibrium: applications to earth, marine and environmental sciences. Clarendon Press, Oxford, pp 731–778
Battarbee RW, Jones VJ, Flower RJ, Cameron NG, Bennion H, Carvalho L, Juggins S (2001) Diatoms. In: Smol JP, Last WM, Birks HJB (eds) Tracking environmental change using lake sediments, vol 3: terrestrial, algal and siliceous indicators. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, pp 155–202
Callender E (2000) Geochemical effects of rapid sedimentation in aquatic systems: minimal diagenesis and the preservation of historical metal signatures. J Paleolimnol 23:243–260. doi:10.1023/A:1008114630756
Chambers JW, Cameron NG (2001) A rod-less piston corer for lake sediments: an improved, rope-operated percussion corer. J Paleolimnol 25:117–122. doi:10.1023/A:1008181406301
Clark RM (1985) A FORTRAN program for constrained sequence-slotting based on minimum combined path length. Comput Geosci 11:605–617. doi:10.1016/0098-3004(85)90089-5
Clark JS, Hussey TC (1996) Estimating the mass flux of charcoal from sediment records: the effect of particle size, morphology, and orientation. Holocene 6:129–144. doi:10.1177/095968369600600201
Clark RL, Wasson RJ (1986) Reservoir sediments. In: DeDeckker P, Williams WD (eds) Limnology in Australia. CSIRO, Melbourne, pp 497–507
Davis J, Koop K (2006) Eutrophication in Australian rivers, reservoirs and estuaries—a southern hemisphere perspective on the science and its implications. Hydrobiologia 559:23–76. doi:10.1007/s10750-005-4429-2
Dean WE (1974) Determination of carbonate and organic matter in calcareous sediment and sedimentary rocks by loss on ignition: comparison with other methods. J Sediment Petrol 44:242–248
Delcoigne A, Hansen P (1975) Sequence comparison by dynamic programming. Biometrika 62:661–664. doi:10.1093/biomet/62.3.661
Garzanti E, Ando S, Vezzoli G, Ali Abdel Megid A, El Kammar A (2006) Petrology of Nile River sands (Ethiopia and Sudan): sediment budgets and erosion patterns. Earth Planet Sci Lett 252:327–341. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2006.10.001
Grimm EC (1987) CONISS: a FORTRAN 77 program for stratigraphically constrained cluster analysis by the method of incremental sum of squares. Comput Geosci 13:13–35. doi:10.1016/0098-3004(87)90022-7
Hall RI, Leavitt PR, Dixit AS, Quinlan R, Smol JP (1999) Limnological succession in reservoirs: a paleolimnological comparison of two methods of reservoir formation. Can J Fish Aquat Sci 56:1109–1121. doi:10.1139/cjfas-56-6-1109
Heneker TM (2003) Surface water assessment of the upper River Torrens catchment. Department of Water, Land and Biodiversity Conservation, Adelaide
Kim JG (2005) Assessment of recent industrialization in wetlands near Ulsan, Korea. J Paleolimnol 33:433–444. doi:10.1007/s10933-004-7617-6
Krammer K, Lange-Bertalot H (1986) Bacillariophyceae. 1: Teil: Naviculaceae. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena
Krammer K, Lange-Bertalot H (1988) Bacillariophyceae. 2: Teil: Bacillariaceae, Epthimiaceae, Surirellaceae. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena
Krammer K, Lange-Bertalot H (1991a) Bacillariophyceae. 3: Centrales, Fragilariaceae, Eunotiaceae. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart
Krammer K, Lange-Bertalot H (1991b) Bacillariophyceae. 4: Achnanthes, Kritische Ergänzunhen zu Navicula (Lineolatae) und Gomphonema Gesamtliteraturverzeichnis Teil 1-4. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart
Murray AS, Marten R, Johnston A, Martin P (1987) Analysis of naturally occurring radionuclides at environmental concentrations by gamma spectrometry. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 115:263–288. doi:10.1007/BF02037443
Outhet DN (1991) Sedimentation in variable reservoirs in New South Wales. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, School of Earth Science, Macquarie University, Sydney
Rhodes AN (1995) A method for the preparation and quantification of microscopic charcoal from terrestrial and lacustrine sediment cores. Holocene 8:113–117. doi:10.1191/095968398671104653
Robbins JA (1978) Geochemical and geophysical applications of radioactive lead. In: Nriagu JO (ed) The biogeochemistry of lead in the environment, Part A. Elsevier Scientific, Amsterdam, pp 285–393
Shotbolt LA, Thomas AD, Hutchinson SM (2005) The use of reservoir sediments as environmental archives of catchment inputs and atmospheric pollution. Prog Phys Geogr 29:337–361. doi:10.1191/0309133305pp452ra
Shotbolt L, Hutchinson S, Thomas A (2006) Sediment stratigraphy and heavy metal fluxes to reservoirs in the Southern Pennine Uplands, UK. J Paleolimnol 35:305–322. doi:10.1007/s10933-005-1594-2
Sonneman JA, Sincock A, Fluin J, Reid M, Newall P, Tibby J, Gell P (2000) An Illustrated guide to common stream diatoms from temperate Australia. Cooperative Research Centre for Freshwater Ecology, Thurgoona
SPSS (2004) SPSS for windows 13.0. SPSS, Chicago
Thompson R, Clark RM (1989) Sequence slotting for stratigraphic correlation between cores: theory and practice. J Paleolimnol 2:173–184. doi:10.1007/BF00202045
Tibby J (2001) Diatoms as indicators of sedimentary processes in Burrinjuck reservoir, New South Wales, Australia. Q Int 83–85:245–256. doi:10.1016/S1040-6182(01)00043-X
Tibby J (2004) Development of a diatom-based model for inferring total phosphorus in south-eastern Australian water storages. J Paleolimnol 31:23–36. doi:10.1023/B:JOPL.0000013272.25122.2a
Turekian KK, Nozaki Y, Benninger LK (1977) Geochemistry of atmospheric radon and radon products. Annu Rev Earth Planet Sci 5:227–255. doi:10.1146/annurev.ea.05.050177.001303
Wasson RJ, Clark RL, Nanninga PM, Waters J (1987) 210Pb as a chronometer and sediment tracer, Burrinjuck Reservoir, Australia. Earth Surf Process Landf 12:399–414. doi:10.1002/esp.3290120406
Yoshikawa S, Yamaguchi S, Hata A (2000) Paleolimnological investigation of recent acidity changes in Sawanoike Pond, Kyoto, Japan. J Paleolimnol 23:285–304. doi:10.1023/A:1008199830698
Acknowledgments
This project was supported by the Torrens Catchment Water Management Board and the Australian Research Council via Linkage project LP0347579 to PG and Peter Wallbrink. Diatoms were counted by Greg Smith, Cameron Barr, Jonathan Tyler, Nicole Morcom and J.T. Teresa Heneker, Department of Land, Water and Biodiversity Conservation provided much of the hydrological data. Peter Murphy, SA Water, provided the water level to volume conversion tools for Kangaroo Creek Reservoir.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Tibby, J., Gell, P., Hancock, G. et al. Complex reservoir sedimentation revealed by an unusual combination of sediment records, Kangaroo Creek Reservoir, South Australia. J Paleolimnol 43, 535–549 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-009-9349-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-009-9349-0