Po.4A.

12

A detailed record
of recent climatic changes
in a laminated lake core in the Sahel
Rodrigue GUILLON , Abdourhamane Amadou TOURE , Christophe PETIT , Vincent BICHET ,
1 1, 2 ,3 1 4

Jean-Louis RAJOT , David SEBAG , Alain DURAND , Zibo GARBA

2 5 5 3

1
ARTeHIS, UMR 5594, Dijon, France, 2 Bioemco, UMR 211, Niamey, Niger, 3
AIRE-Développement, Niamey, Niger, 4 Chrono-environnement, UMR 6249, Besançon, France,
5
M2C, UMR 6143, Mont-Saint-Aignan, France.

Bangou Kirey (or “Red Pond” in

Dzerma; N 13°30’31.8’’– E 2°13’35.5’’), is
a large pond, measuring 0.36 km²; it lies 15
km east of Niamey (Niger) (Fig.1.), and has
been permanent since the water table
increased in the 1960s. It is one of a series of
ponds located in a fossil tributary of the Fig. 5. dark and light laminae
Niger, the Kori of Ouallam. During the rainy
season, Bangou Kirey is fed by a gully BK-08-2
network covering a catchment area of 24 Core BK2-08-2 is finely laminated, alternating dark
km², under strong anthropogenic influence. and light laminae (Fig. 5.), it is 120 cm long.
Since 2008, several cores (fig. 2.) have been To differentiate each deposit, lightness (l*) is
sampled. BK-08-2 was cored with a measured by spectrophometer analysis. It is a ratio
UWITEC corer (Fig. 3.) and a Russian corer of incident light reflected by a surface and which
in the middle of the pond outside the gullies characterizes dark and light laminae.
(Fig. 4).
Fig. 1. Location map showing kori of Ouallam in S-W Niger Fig. 4. Bathometry of Bangou
Kirey, and core BK-08-2
Fig. 3. UWITEC corer

The variability in lightness (Fig. 6.) provides a Lightness (l*) l* - Lf l* - Lf - Hf

signal with a noisy background. To clean it, low 25 30 35 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 -1 0 1 -2 -1 0 1 2
0
and high frequencies are removed from the signal.
The results allow us to characterize sequences with
the thickest light laminae and variable dark
laminae. These dark layers are composed of double -20
deposits at the millimetre scale. However, the high
frequency signal cannot be identified in this
analysis.
-40
Depth (cm)

-60
Fig. 2. The ponds of Saga Gorou in fossil tributary of Niger. Location of cores sampled. Mineralogical analyses (XRF and X-ray
diffraction) show a homogenous chemical and
mineralogical composition between dark and
light laminae, which suggests that they have the -80
same mineralogical origin.
Therefore, the first six centimetres were sampled
to carry out 19 micro-particle-size analyses. -100

-120

Low frequency (Lf) High frequency (Hf)

Fig. 6. Lightness versus depth

63 µm 2 µm
Sand Silt Clay
samples
Mixed
particle-size f
1
distribution
f
Homogeneous Aeolian deposits Dry season
2 particle-size distribution and super decantation
3
4
Mixed Monsoon season
Successive water f

5 particle-size f, C
and aeolian deposits
distribution
Plateau
6
7
8
f
Homogeneous Aeolian deposits
9 Dry season
particle-size distribution and super decantation f
Depth (mm)

Scopix picture and lightness

10
11
Alternating light and dark laminae in the deposit bear witness to the seasonality of the Sahel climate.
12
13 Dark laminae show great variability in thickness. At higher frequencies, we identified sedimentary events
14 composed of double deposits at the millimetre scale. These deposits correspond to coarse detrital influx
The 3D graphic representation of micro-particle- followed by the settling of finer sediments, recording each rainfall event which generated runoff.
size analyses shows, for each sample, a particle- 15 Light laminae are constant. They are formed by super decantation, concentrating fine particles.
size distribution between 10 (0.95 µm) et 6
(15.5 µm). We distinguish the thickest light 16
laminae (samples 5 and 18) with a concentration
of grain size between 9 (2 µm) and 8 (4µm).
The dark layer particle-size distribution tends 17
towards coarse particles. Nevertheless, the We tried to correlate the dark layers with the last forty years of annual rainfall, measured at a weather station
highest ratio still concerns a particle size between located 5 km from the pond. The preliminary results show a correlation: the signals are in phase but amplitude is
18 different because the intensity of rainfall is very variable.
9 and 8.
19
The sample is not precise enough to isolate each 1000 100
Scopix image scanned image 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
lamina at the millimetre scale. However, we can
observe a great variability of volume percentage Phi 900

in the dark layers. Therefore this heterogeneous 800 80

0. 6

8
0.2
0.4

0.8

1.2

1.6
1.8

2.2
2.4
2.6
2.8

3.2
3.4
3.6
3.8

4.4
4.6
1.

4.

4.
0

distribution confirms a sequential deposit at Vol

higher frequencies. % 700
Thickness of dark layers (mm)

600 60
Total annual rainfall (mm)

rainfall
500
BK2

400 40

300

Sediment deposits in this permanent pond provide a complete and unbroken record of recent weather events. This study quantifies 200 20
the relationship between weather parameters and sediment fluxes, investigating whether this relationship is constant over time or if
the increase in farming activity over the past 30 years has affected sediment flux. This work will provide a reference which will 100

allow facies changes in older sedimentary records to be identified, in relation to the evolution of regional climate and anthropogenic
0 0
pressure at a millennial timescale.
1949 1959 1969 1979 1989 1999 2009

Years

3rd International AMMA Conference 20-24 July 2009, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso