Investigation of the fingerprint of climate changes in the Tinovul Apa Roșie peat bog (central Romania) by using 210Pb dating method

Piroska Tóth* and József Fazakas

The object of our research was to investigate the peat mass accumulation mechanism, which reflects on wet and warmer periods, which stimulate the accumulation rate of peat bog production and colder, dry periods, when the peat growth is stagnant. In warm and dry periods, the peat can stop growing. This fluctuation in peat evolution reflects clearly the changes in climate (especially temperature and precipitation). Lake sediment and peat lands represent a large database for recent environmental changes. Changes in the intensity and periodicity of the geomorphological (erosion, sedimentation) and climate variations nowadays happen in a relatively short time interval. During this study the 210Pb dating method is used for dating peat deposits to collect data on peat growth and inorganic material deposition in the recent past, in correlation with microclimate changes in the Red Water valley (Apa Roșie, Covasna county, Romania). 137Cs and 210Pb measurements were performed using gamma spectrometry. 210Po measurements were done for calibration and to validate the gamma spectrometry results. Additionally, 137Cs measurements provided a useful independent time marker for validating the data obtained from the 210Pb dating. Two peat columns were collected from the Red Water (Tinovul Apa Roșie) peat bog from the center of Romania (Transylvania). The obtained results show that the peat accumulation starts from 1820, and in Core A the maximum growth period is between 1930-1960 with an average growth rate of 0.04±0.008 g/cm2y, while the inorganic sediment accumulation has two maximum values, the first in 1830, and the second in 1930, with 0.03±0.009 g/cm2y. Core C clearly shows the warming tendency in the local micro climate, which corresponds to an increase in the growth rate of the peat starting from 1900 from a value of 0.01±0.0009 to 0.04±0.008 g/cm2 y.

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Published on: Jul 1, 2020 Pages: 18-23

Full Text PDF Full Text HTML DOI: 10.17352/gje.000014
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