Using a 150-cm lake bed core sample, the paleoenvironmental change during the past ~1,300 years in Lake Koyama-ike, Tottori Prefecture, western Japan, was reconstructed based on diatom fossil assemblages, electric conductivity, and radiocarbon ages. Consequently, the following points were clarified:
1) During the past 1,300 years, the surface water of Lake Koyama-ike has been a freshwater environment—freshwater pond or lake—because freshwater diatom species were dominant in the entire core. In contrast, due to salinity stratification, a brackish-to-marine environment has remained immediately above the lake bed.
2) The diatom fossil assemblages indicated the decrease in water salinity and depth after ~1,000 cal BP. Because a similar transition has been previously reported in studies conducted at other sites in Lake Koyama-ike, this environmental change is a common phenomenon in this lake.
3) A decrease in water salinity around 1,000 cal BP indicated that the channel connecting the Japan Sea and Lake Koyama-ike was filled by the blown sand. The shallowing of the lake around the same period was probably caused due to rapid deposition of riverine sediments and relative sea-level fall, which presumably induced the sand to actively blow in the coastal area.
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