Lacustrine carbonates of the northern Great Plains of Canada

The northern Great Plains of western Canada, a vast region stretching from the Precambrian Shield east of Winnipeg, Manitoba, westward for some 1600 km to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, contains literally millions of lakes and wetlands. Although often characterized as a saline, Na-SO4 system, in fact the wide range of water chemistries exhibited by the lakes results in an unusually large diversity of sediment composition. Despite a long history of limnogeological study, it is only recently that the spectrum of carbonate minerals and sedimentological processes in these lakes has been realized. About 30 species of carbonate minerals have been reported from the modern and Holocene sediment of about 50 basins in the region. The ubiquity of detrital calcite and dolomite is a legacy of the carbonate bedrock and carbonate-rich glacial sediments. Elevated salinities of the lakes, together with high alkalinities, productivity, and pH values, act in concert to create thermodynamically saturated or supersaturated conditions with respect to many carbonate minerals. The most common non-detrital components are Mg-calcite, aragonite and non-stoichiometric dolomite. Many of the basins whose brines have very high Mg/Ca ratios also contain hydromagnesite, magnesite, and nesquehonite. Although not common, sodium carbonates, including trona, natron and nahcolite, also occur in some of the hypersaline lakes.Because of their great range of formative conditions, carbonates have been the workhorse for much of the physical and geochemical paleolimnology in the Canadian Great Plains. However, the often-difficult task of distinguishing endogenic lacustrine carbonates from allogenic and authigenic minerals has limited the use of carbonate stratigraphy in the region. Despite this problem, the carbonates have been useful in deciphering (i) past changes in hydrology and drainage basin characteristics, (ii) lake level and water column stratification fluctuations, and (iii) water chemistry and salinity variations.

► A wide range of lake types and water chemistries exist in the Canadian Great Plains.
► About 30 carbonate minerals have been reported from 51 lakes in the region.
► Inorganic precipitation mechanisms appear to be dominant over organic processes.
► These carbonates are important in reconstructing past environmental changes.