Jörg F. W. Negendank
(GeoForschungs Zentrum, Potsdam, Germany)
In 1991, as Vice President and geologist of the University of Trier, Germany I had the obligation to visit partner universities in Japan and China to strengthen the contacts for our students being educated in both countries in both languages and geosciences. Apart from these commitments I participated in the INQUA congress at Beijing congress center and met Prof. Liu Tungsheng personally for the first time.
In 1992 I moved as Professor of Geology to the University of Potsdam, a position that was structured in combination with the new non-university research center GeoForschungs Zentrum Potsdam where I was responsible as director for the department "Structure and Evolution of the Lithosphere" and the section "Sediments and Basin Analysis". This was the time of the inspiration of lake coring projects under the scientific roof of PAGES (Colman, S. M. [Ed.], 1996: Continental Drilling for Paleoclimatic Records: Recommendations from an International Workshop: PAGES Workshop Report Series 96-4, 104 pp.) having been discussed in the volume "Scientific Rationale for Establishment of an International Program of Continental Scientific Drilling" edited by M. Zoback and R. Emmermann, and published in 1994:
Lakes
The potential for long cores from lake basins relates to the lake type simplified to "small" lakes and "large" lakes. Small lakes, e.g. volcanic lakes (maar-, crater-, caldera lakes), impact craters or solution lakes, have the advantage of defined origin, small drainage area, a close approximation of atmospheric input, and relative technical accessibility. Recent drilling in maar lakes is providing some of the best quality, continuous paleoclimatic records across Europe (Negenank & Zolitschka 1993). Such lakes have potential in many regions of the world and might provide a global network of local to regional paleoenvironmental information.
Large lakes on the other hand can provide integrated, long, continuous records of climate and landscape changes for whole regions. Local effects are largely buffered, although abrupt events are reflected as well. The rates of accumulation are generally lower giving the potential of much longer records if compared to small lakes. Technological problems exist on large lakes, as big coring platforms or vessels are needed. The great water depth can be still another problem.
Lake drilling, in both modern and ancient basins is just entering this realm. The prospect of recovering continuous, high resolution records of paleoenvironmental indicators over vast periods of the Earth's geologic history is a fascinating prospect. It will culminate in detailed correlations between marine, continental and ice core data finally providing a global network of sites from which a profound knowledge of the Earth's history and detailed predictions for future changes in the system Earth will be obtained.
Prof. Liu Tungsheng as the responsible co-ordinator for the PEP-II (Pole-Equator-Pole) profile and myself, co-ordinating the European Lake Drilling Programme, developed with colleagues from PAGES a "Prospectus for a Global Lake Drilling Initiative" at Lamont in February 1996, discussed at ICDP-meeting in Tsukuba, Japan in 1996.
From this time on a strong co-operation developed between European and Asian lake study groups, initiated by ELDP (European Lake Drilling Programme) and leaded to the ALDP (Asian Lake Drilling Programme), organized by Prof. Yoshinori Yasuda (Japan) with his colleagues from China, Prof. Liu Tungsheng and Prof. Liu Jiaqi. Several meetings in China, Japan and Europe with intensified exchange of scientists, field trips and detailed field work (coring in south and northeast China) have been the base for a lot of publications and friendships.
Fig. 1 demonstrates the areas of projects I and II having been and being the main focus of maar lake sediment studies revealing a broad range of high resolution paleoclimatic records with annual or seasonal resolution (e.g. Yancheva, G., Nowaczyk, N. R., Mingram, J., Dulski, P., Schettler, G., Negendank, J. F. W., Liu, J., Sigman, D. M., Peterson, L. C., Haug, G. H., 2007: Influence of the intertropical convergence zone on the East Asian monsoon. Nature, 445, 74-77).
Precoring field work in the Changbeishan volcanic field together with Prof. Liu Tungsheng was a real endeavour discovering this extraordinary landscape with wonderful clear weather on the top of the Changbeishan volcano.
Unforgettable for me is the meeting in Kunming in 2002 and the field excursions to e.g. the Lugu lake, the Erhai lake and the "alpine" landscape (Yasuda, Y., Shinde, V. (Eds.): Monsoon and Civilization, Lustre Press and Roli Books, Delhi, 2004).
Scientifically and personally it was an important experience in my life having met Prof. Liu Tungsheng – this ever stimulating scientist.
The Chinese-German co-operation for paleoclimatic reconstructions during the last 15 years has been very successful and is going on between both institutions.
