A Late Holocene record of landscape degradation from Heygsvatn, the Faroe Islands
Abstract Diatom, magnetic susceptibility and loss-on-ignition (LOI) analyses of a 9-metre sediment core from Heygsvatn (Suðuroy, the Faroe Islands) were used to investigate the response of lake and catchment to mid-Late Holocene environmental change. A 30-lake training set from Faroese lakes was also used to explore the relationships between diatoms and environmental variables and assist in the interpretation of the diatom stratigraphy. Canonical Correspondence Analysis showed that lake depth, light penetration, total phosphorus (TP), pH and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) were the most significant variables affecting diatom distribution in Faroese lakes (p