Research project

Windermere Research

Project overview

The University of Southampton has over 15 years of experience in investigating and analysing the lake bed and sub-surface sediments of Windermere, England’s largest natural lake. NERC funded research, much of it in collaboration with BGS, has facilitated the acquisition and analysis of several high resolution data sets that provide key insights into the lake bed environments, the subsurface structures and the sedimentary record. This has enabled the reconstruction of the history of environmental change over the last 20,000 years ranging from the last deglaciation of the Lake District through to anthropogenically driven lake pollution and eutrophication.

Research by the University of Southampton and partners has been driven by five collaboratively supervised PhD investigations and associated complementary Masters Projects. Initial research targeted the subsurface sediment structure. These investigations, complemented by subsequent work on the lake floor bathymetry, environments and surface sediments, paved the way for a comprehensive coring program designed to recover the past 20,000 years history of lake evolution. This spans a period from the last Glacial Maximum via the climatically highly variable deglaciation, through the Holocene to the most recent period of increased human impact on the lake. Publication of the results of these studies is ongoing, as is monitoring of the most recent sedimentary records of lake pollution and eutrophication.

 

Methodology

Location of Windermere

Seismic Surveys

University of Southampton surveys 2007-2008. Over 150 km of high resolution multichannel seismic reflection profiles along intersecting lines were taken with a Boomer source and 60 m 60 channel streamer covering the entire lake basin. These were augmented by localised 3D seismic imaging.

Multibeam

BGS survey 2010 on R/V White Ribbon, 100% coverage to 5m water depth

Sediment samples

74 samples from 2011, 29 samples from 2012. Analysis of sub-samples: grain size analysis, scanning electron microscopy, XRF and total organic carbon.

Underwater Video

BGS and CEH ROV's used to investigate lake bed environments

Sediment Coring

8 piston cores (max length 10m) and 9 gravity cores (max length 2m) were acquired in 2012. Cores run through MSCL, split and logged. Further analysis using ITRAX, XRF, 137Cs and 210Pb dating. The piston cores have also been dated by radiocarbon and undergone palaeomagnetic analysis. Additional short gravity cores from reference locations in the North and South Basins, also recovering the sediment-water interface, were taken in 2014, 2018 and 2019. The cores have been resin-embedded and sediment fabrics and mineralogy analysed by optical microscopy and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) including energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis.

Figure 2. Deglaciation of Windermere and Figure 3. Multibeam data from the North Basin of Windermere

 

Lakebed and Sediments

The morphology of the lake bed is divided into several sub-basins, characterised by a number of ridges, steps, exposed bedrock, plateaus and isolated topographic highs. These glacial geomorphological features relate to the most recent Devensian glaciation. A number of submerged mass movements and features formed by human activities represent currently active sedimentary processes. Several lake bed environments have been identified, with a fine detrital mud covering >95% of the lake bed. The fine detrital mud represents most recent Holocene sedimentation derived from the catchment.

Analysis of sediments from the last 200 years shows that Windermere underwent eutrophication due to increased human activity, leading to increased concentrations of potentially toxic elements in the lake sediment including lead, mercury and arsenic. Lake remediation schemes, including improvements in sewage treatment, have led to a partial recovery, but current climatic warming trends are contributing to renewed concentrations of toxic elements in the surface sediments (Figure 4 and Fielding et al., 2020).

A core of the lake bed surface sediment that shows the change to darker mud containing high concentrations of toxic elements due to human activity-driven eutrophication of the lake.

 

PhDs and Other Opportunities

Visit GSNOCS

Related pages

The British Geological Survey surveys Lake Windermere

 

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Staff

Lead researchers

Emeritus Professor Alan Kemp

Research interests

  • Diatom ecology and palaeoecology and the role of diatoms in biogeochmical cycling
  • High resolution records of palaeoclimatic and environmental change, especially from laminated sediments
  • Interannual to decadal scale climate variability
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Professor Jonathan Bull

Professor in Ocean & Earth Science

Research interests

  • Fluid Flow and Carbon Capture and Storage
  • Monitoring, Measurement and Verification
  • Marine Geophysics
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Professor Pete Langdon

Associate Dean

Research interests

  • Climate-environment-human interactions
  • Freshwater ecosystem resilience and functioning
  • Tipping points in the environment
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Other researchers

Professor Justin Dix

Professor in Marine Geology & Geophysics
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Dr Richard Pearce

Research Fellow

Research interests

  • Research interests include the study of past climates, in particular from varve archives in freshwater and marine environments, the mineralogy of fine-grained clay-rich sediments, and the application of electron microscopy techniques to archaeological materials.
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Collaborating research institutes, centres and groups

Research outputs

J. James Fielding, Ian Croudace, Alan Kemp, Richard Pearce, Carol Cotterill, Peter Langdon & Rachael Avery, 2020, Science of the Total Environment, 722, 1-20
Type: article
Rachael Avery, Alan Kemp, Jonathan Bull, Richard Pearce, Mark, Eric Vardy, J. James Fielding & Carol Cotterill, 2019, Quaternary Science Reviews, 225
Type: article
J. James Fielding, Alan E.S. Kemp, Jonathan M. Bull, Carol Cotterill, Richard B. Pearce, Rachael S. Avery, Peter G. Langdon & Ian W. Croudace, 2018, Journal of the Geological Society, 175(6), 903-914
Type: article
Rachael S. Avery, Chuang Xuan, Alan E.S. Kemp, Jonathan M. Bull, Carol Cotterill, John, James Fielding, Richard Pearce & Ian Croudace, 2017, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 477, 108-122
Type: article
Helen Miller, Ian J. Winfield, Janice M. Fletcher, J. Ben James, Joey van Rijn, Jonathan M. Bull & Carol J. Cotterill, 2015, Ecology of Freshwater Fish, 24(1), 32-43
Type: article