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Is charcoal reflectance a palaeofire intensity proxy?

Conference Paper · May 2022

DOI: 10.5194/egusphere-egu22-2937

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Alicja Bonk Wojciech Tylmann

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Geochemical record of paleoenvironmental changes in annually laminated sediments in Lake Szurpiły (Geochemiczny zapis zmian paleośrodowiskowych w rocznie
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Investigating fire history in Poland over the last 2000 years using annually laminated lake sediments View project

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 EGU22-2937
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-2937
EGU General Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Is charcoal reflectance a palaeofire intensity proxy?

Alicja Bonk1, Claire M. Belcher2, and Wojciech Tylmann1
1
University of Gdańsk, Gdańsk, Poland (alicja.bonk@ug.edu.pl)
2
University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom

Variations in wildfire are a hot topic due to concerns linked to the current climate crisis. Although
an increasing number of studies focus on how the coupled climate and anthropogenic forcings
influence fire frequency and behaviour in highly fire-prone regions, there has been less research in
more temperate ecosystems.

Analyzing charcoal records yields insights into the fire regimes in a given area, including the fire
frequency, type, and intensity. Recent research suggests that measuring the amount of light
reflected from charcoals can provide information about the energy flux during the pyrolysis of
plant material, which can be further translated into a proxy for fire intensity. To assess the use of
reflectance as a post-fire tool for palaeofire intensity reconstructions, we used annually laminated
(varved) sediment record from Lake Żabińskie, north-eastern Poland.

We provide both quantitative macrocharcoal, and charcoal reflectance measurements of

individual charcoal particles as well as semi-quantitative morphotypes analysis. These data were
compared with palynological analysis of the vegetation shifts and evidence for the impact of
humans in the lake area. Our preliminary research indicates that lower reflectance measurements
(mean value around 1%) most likely relate to the litter fires as the charcoals show features of
biodegradation before the fire. Higher values (mean 1-3%) represent surface understory fires
(undergrowth burning) while the highest reflectance values (mean >3%) can be related to the
crown fires. Our measurements are the first of this kind in this part of the world.

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