A Holocene paleosalinity diatom record from southwestern Saskatchewan, Canada: Harris Lake revisited

Fossil diatoms were analysed from a 10.3 m core from Harris Lake, Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan, and a diatom-salinity transfer function was used to construct a history of Holocene salinity changes for the lake. The diatom paleosalinity record indicates that Harris Lake remained fresh <0.5 g l-1 throughout the Holocene, with only slight increases in salinity between approximately 6500 and 5200 years BP. This interval corresponds to the only period in the lake's history when planktonic diatoms were abundant; benthic Fragilaria taxa, mainly F. pinnata, F. construens and F. brevistriata were dominant throughout most of the Holocene. The shift from a benthic to a planktonic diatom flora between 6500 and 5200 years BP may be an indirect response to a warmer climate that reduced forest cover in the watershed and allowed greater rates of inorganic sedimentation. The small salinity increase that accompanies the floristic change is probably not the result of lower lake levels; in fact the lake was probably deeper at this point than in the later Holocene. This paleosalinity record indicates that Harris Lake did not experience episodes of hypersalinity during the mid-Holocene, as suggested by a previous study, and that the lake may have been fresh during the early Holocene as well.