Extracting paleo-weathering signals from authigenic phases in lake sediments: A case-study of Lake Baikal

Authigenic phases in lake sediments hold the potential to record changes in the isotope compositions of past lake water, potentially yielding valuable information on secular changes in continental weathering patterns and rates, including over past glacial cycles.Here, different leaching approaches are investigated with the aim of extracting Sr, Nd, Pb, and Be hosted in authigenic Fe-Mn (oxy)hydroxide sediment phases for precise isotope measurements. Elemental Al/Mn, Ca/Mn, and P/Mn ratios obtained via a mild reductive leach agree well with the composition of marine authigenic Fe-Mn phases. For core top sediments, leached Sr isotope compositions obtained with this leach agree well with the composition of lake water. The Be and Nd isotope compositions of core top leachates are consistent with the spatial variability observed in the water column. Due to high concentrations in Fe-Mn phases, leachate compositions are dominated by authigenic Be, Sr, Nd, and Pb, even in cases when as much as 40% of leached phases (by mass) are non-authigenic. These lines of evidence suggest that the mild reductive leach successfully extracts the modern lake isotope composition from modern sediments in terms of the isotope systems investigated. We further show that the leaching method is also reliable for older sediments (<340 ka): leached paleo-Sr isotope compositions are consistent between the current and previous interglacial periods, as well as for glacial periods. This suggests that reconstructed water isotope compositions are not affected by early diagenetic processes, instead reflecting environmental factors around the lake. Although more difficult to assess for Be, Nd, and Pb due to the heterogeneity of modern lake water, the data we present indicate the overall robustness of the leaching approach.These promising results open up lakes as archives for paleo-weathering reconstructions. Given that marine reconstructions face some important limitations (e.g., long residence times for Sr and the inability to reconstruct secular variation on shorter timescales), lake records provide an avenue to improve our understanding of changes in regional weathering processes over glacial-interglacial timescales. The mild reductive leach used here may also be useful for meteoric Be studies in marine shelf settings, to prevent leaching of terrestrial sedimentary Fe-Mn oxy(hydroxide) phases.