Inca Huasi (ancient lake)

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Inca Huasi was a paleolake in the Andes. It was named by a research team in 2006. [1]

It existed about 46,000 years ago in the Salar de Uyuni basin. [2] Water levels during this episode rose by about 10 metres (33 ft). Overall, this lake cycle was short and not deep, [1] with water levels reaching a height of 3,670 metres (12,040 ft). The lake would have had a surface of 21,000 square kilometres (8,100 sq mi). [3] Most water was contributed to it by the Uyuni-Coipasa drainage basin, with only minimal contributions from Lake Titicaca. [4] Changes in the South American monsoon may have triggered its formation. [5]

Radiocarbon dates on tufa which formed in Lake Inca Huasi were dated at 45,760 ± 440 years ago. [2] Uranium-thorium dating has yielded ages between 45,760 and 47,160 years. [6] Overall the lake existed between 46,000 and 47,000 years ago. [7] The Inca Huasi cycle coincides with the marine isotope stage 3, [8] the formation of a deep lake in the Laguna Pozuelos basin and the expansion of glaciers in several parts of South America [9] including the Puna. [10]

This lake cycle took part during a glacial epoch, along with the Sajsi lake cycles. [11] A more humid climate in northeastern Argentina and elsewhere in subtropical South America has been linked to the Inca Huasi phase. [5] However, rainfall might not have increased by much on the Altiplano during the Inca Huasi cycle. [7]

Other paleolakes are Coipasa, Ouki, Minchin, Sajsi, Salinas and Tauca. [2] Research made in 2006 attributed the "Lake Minchin" to this lake phase. [5]

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References

  1. 1 2 Placzek, Quade & Patchett 2006, p. 524.
  2. 1 2 3 Placzek, Quade & Patchett 2006, p. 520.
  3. ↑ Placzek, Quade & Patchett 2013, p. 103.
  4. ↑ Placzek, Christa J.; Quade, Jay; Patchett, P. Jonathan (January 2011). "Isotopic tracers of paleohydrologic change in large lakes of the Bolivian Altiplano" (PDF). Quaternary Research. 75 (1): 239. doi:10.1016/j.yqres.2010.08.004. S2CID   54069269.
  5. 1 2 3 Zech et al. 2009, p. 131.
  6. ↑ Placzek, Quade & Patchett 2006, p. 521.
  7. 1 2 Placzek, Quade & Patchett 2013, p. 104.
  8. ↑ Zech, Michael; Glaser, Bruno (30 January 2008). "Improved compound-specificδ13C analysis of n-alkanes for application in palaeoenvironmental studies". Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry. 22 (2): 135–42. doi:10.1002/rcm.3342. PMID   18059042.
  9. ↑ Ward, D.; Thornton, R.; Cesta, J. (15 September 2017). "Across the Arid Diagonal: deglaciation of the western Andean Cordillera in southwest Bolivia and northern Chile". Cuadernos de Investigación Geográfica (in Spanish). 43 (2): 689. doi: 10.18172/cig.3209 . ISSN   1697-9540.
  10. ↑ Luna, Lisa V.; Bookhagen, Bodo; Niedermann, Samuel; Rugel, Georg; Scharf, Andreas; Merchel, Silke (October 2018). "Glacial chronology and production rate cross-calibration of five cosmogenic nuclide and mineral systems from the southern Central Andean Plateau". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 500: 249. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2018.07.034. ISSN   0012-821X. S2CID   134780354.
  11. ↑ Placzek, Quade & Patchett 2006, p. 531.

Sources

  • Placzek, C.J.; Quade, J.; Patchett, P.J. (February 2013). "A 130ka reconstruction of rainfall on the Bolivian Altiplano". Earth and Planetary Science Letters . 363: 97–108. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2012.12.017.
  • Zech, Michael; Zech, Roland; Morrás, Héctor; Moretti, Lucas; Glaser, Bruno; Zech, Wolfgang (March 2009). "Late Quaternary environmental changes in Misiones, subtropical NE Argentina, deduced from multi-proxy geochemical analyses in a palaeosol-sediment sequence". Quaternary International . 196 (1–2): 121–136. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2008.06.006.
  • Placzek, C.; Quade, J.; Patchett, P. J. (8 May 2006). "Geochronology and stratigraphy of late Pleistocene lake cycles on the southern Bolivian Altiplano: Implications for causes of tropical climate change". Geological Society of America Bulletin. 118 (5–6): 515–532. doi:10.1130/B25770.1.

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