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Charcoal dispersion and deposition in boreal lakes from 3 years of monitoring: Differences between local and regional fires
Author(s) -
Oris France,
Ali Adam A.,
Asselin Hugo,
Paradis Laure,
Bergeron Yves,
Finsinger Walter
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/2014gl060984
Subject(s) - charcoal , deposition (geology) , environmental science , boreal , sediment , watershed , taiga , physical geography , hydrology (agriculture) , atmospheric sciences , geology , geography , geomorphology , forestry , paleontology , chemistry , geotechnical engineering , machine learning , computer science , organic chemistry
To evaluate the influence of long‐distance transport of charcoal particles on the detection of local wildfires from lake sediment sequences, we tracked three consecutive years of charcoal deposition into traps set within seven boreal lakes in northeastern Canada. Peaks in macroscopic charcoal accumulation (>150 µm) were linked to both local (inside the watershed) and regional wildfires. However, regional fires were characterized by higher proportions of small particles (<0.1 mm 2 ) in charcoal assemblages. We conclude that the analysis of particle size distribution is useful to discriminate “true” local fires from regional wildfires.