Two Boat Lake as an Historical Archive for Future Studies by GRASP : Greenland Analogue Surface Project

Abstract:

Two Boat Lake is a non-glacial lake situated within the largest ice free area on

Greenland. This literary study has investigated whether it could potentially become a

good environmental archive in future studies. As a periglacial lake with permafrost

and a talik at its bottom, Two Boat Lake is interesting for the Greenland Analogue

Surface Project (GRASP) from the Swedish Nuclear and Waste Management (SKB)

when investigating the ecology and hydrology of a landscape that will be similar to a

future glaciated repository in Sweden. The purpose of this report is to analyse data of

the sediment thickness in the lake, gathered with ground penetrating radar, to see

where the best place would be to drill a sediment core in future studies. Different

articles were studied to compare advantages and disadvantages of methods focusing

on geomorphology, organic content, fossils and isotopes or chemical analyses. The

result shows a maximum sediment thickness in the northern part of Two Boat Lake.

As a conclusion, the studied methods, the maximum sediment thickness and the

regional setting was compared to propose an approach when analysing future

sediment cores.