Reconstruction of climate and landscape changes in a high mountain lake catchment in the Gorkha Himal, Nepal during the Late Glacial and Holocene as deduced from radiocarbon and compound-specific stable isotope analysis of terrestrial, aquatic and microbi

We present both conventional proxies (total organic carbon and N, 14C, δ13C, δ15N) and compound-specific stable isotope data for terrestrial, aquatic and microbial biomarkers combined with an in-depth interpretation of their environmental meaning for a sediment core from Lake Rukche at 3500 m a.s.l. in the Gorkha Himal, Nepal, a region with a paucity of palaeoclimate data. Compound-specific δ13C values of terrestrial sugars and n-alkanes indicate a predominance of C4 grasses during the Late Glacial, while the Holocene was dominated by C3 vegetation.