Centennial-scale climate variability in the North Minusinsk Basin over the last 3000 years: palaeoecological potential of non-pollen palynomorphs from Lake Shira

This paper presents a new palynological record from the 144-cm-long, annually-laminated sediment core Shira-2021-II-1, obtained in 2021 from the bottom sediments of the deep-water meromictic Lake Shira, located in the North Minusinsk Basin, south Siberia. Information on the history of vegetation and climate of the region in the Late Holocene is still scarce. New data allows for partially filling this gap in current knowledge. The new record of non-pollen palynomorphs and geochemical indicators of natural environmental change covers the last 3000 years at an average resolution of 21 years. The new results supplement the available regional reconstructions of the climate and dynamics of the hydrological regime of Lake Shira and confirm the assumption that changes in the lake’s hydrology in the Late Holocene were mainly related to large-scale atmospheric circulation processes controlling the water and temperature balance of the Minusinsk Basin. Despite the long regional history of mobile pastoralism, non-pollen palynomorphs and geochemical indicators, as well as available pollen records, suggest the onset of active anthropogenic activity since the second half of the 20th century. In general, the new proxy records show the importance of non-pollen palynomorphs from annually laminated lake sediments for high-resolution temporal reconstructions of lake hydroclimate and general moisture variability in steppe regions of southern Siberia.

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