Inca Huasi (ancient lake)

Inca Huasi was a paleolake in the Andes. It was named by a research team in 2006.[1]

It existed about 46,000 years ago in the Salar de Uyuni basin.[2] Water levels during this episode rose by about 10 metres (33 ft). Overall, this lake cycle was short and not deep,[1] with water levels reaching a height of 3,670 metres (12,040 ft). The lake would have had a surface of 21,000 square kilometres (8,100 sq mi).[3] Most water was contributed to it by the Uyuni-Coipasa drainage basin, with only minimal contributions from Lake Titicaca.[4] Changes in the South American monsoon may have triggered its formation.[5]

Radiocarbon dates on tufa which formed in Lake Inca Huasi were dated at 45,760 ± 440 years ago.[2] Uranium-thorium dating has yielded ages between 45,760 and 47,160 years.[6] Overall the lake existed between 46,000 and 47,000 years ago.[7] The Inca Huasi cycle coincides with the marine isotope stage 3,[8] the formation of a deep lake in the Laguna Pozuelos basin and the expansion of glaciers in several parts of South America[9] including the Puna.[10]

This lake cycle took part during a glacial epoch, along with the Sajsi lake cycles.[11] A more humid climate in northeastern Argentina and elsewhere in subtropical South America has been linked to the Inca Huasi phase.[5] However, rainfall might not have increased by much on the Altiplano during the Inca Huasi cycle.[7]

Other paleolakes are Coipasa, Ouki, Minchin, Sajsi, Salinas and Tauca.[2] Research made in 2006 attributed the "Lake Minchin" to this lake phase.[5]

References

1. Placzek, Quade & Patchett 2006, p. 524.
2. Placzek, Quade & Patchett 2006, p. 520.
3. Placzek, Quade & Patchett 2013, p. 103.
4. Placzek, Christa J.; Quade, Jay; Patchett, P. Jonathan (January 2011). "Isotopic tracers of paleohydrologic change in large lakes of the Bolivian Altiplano" (PDF). Quaternary Research. 75 (1): 239. doi:10.1016/j.yqres.2010.08.004.
5. Zech et al. 2009, p. 131.
6. Placzek, Quade & Patchett 2006, p. 521.
7. Placzek, Quade & Patchett 2013, p. 104.
8. Zech, Michael; Glaser, Bruno (30 January 2008). "Improved compound-specificδ13C analysis of n-alkanes for application in palaeoenvironmental studies". Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry. 22 (2): 135–42. doi:10.1002/rcm.3342. PMID 18059042.
9. Ward, D.; Thornton, R.; Cesta, J. (15 September 2017). "Across the Arid Diagonal: deglaciation of the western Andean Cordillera in southwest Bolivia and northern Chile". Cuadernos de Investigación Geográfica (in Spanish). 43 (2): 689. doi:10.18172/cig.3209. ISSN 1697-9540.
10. Luna, Lisa V.; Bookhagen, Bodo; Niedermann, Samuel; Rugel, Georg; Scharf, Andreas; Merchel, Silke (October 2018). "Glacial chronology and production rate cross-calibration of five cosmogenic nuclide and mineral systems from the southern Central Andean Plateau". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 500: 249. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2018.07.034. ISSN 0012-821X.
11. Placzek, Quade & Patchett 2006, p. 531.

Sources

• Placzek, C.J.; Quade, J.; Patchett, P.J. (February 2013). "A 130ka reconstruction of rainfall on the Bolivian Altiplano". Earth and Planetary Science Letters. 363: 97–108. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2012.12.017.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Zech, Michael; Zech, Roland; Morrás, Héctor; Moretti, Lucas; Glaser, Bruno; Zech, Wolfgang (March 2009). "Late Quaternary environmental changes in Misiones, subtropical NE Argentina, deduced from multi-proxy geochemical analyses in a palaeosol-sediment sequence". Quaternary International. 196 (1–2): 121–136. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2008.06.006.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Placzek, C.; Quade, J.; Patchett, P. J. (8 May 2006). "Geochronology and stratigraphy of late Pleistocene lake cycles on the southern Bolivian Altiplano: Implications for causes of tropical climate change". Geological Society of America Bulletin. 118 (5–6): 515–532. doi:10.1130/B25770.1.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)