Three soil profiles from the Eger floodplain in Nördlingen in southern Germany (NEP1, NEP2 and NEP3), were sampled and micropalaeontological data were collected. Samples were weighted, wet sieved through 125 µm, dried on a heating plate at <60°C, and studied under a stereomicroscope at the University of Jena, Germany. Some specific particles of interest (plant remains, charcoal, mollusc and brick fragments) were assessed in semiquantitative abundance classes for each sample, while all other particles of interest were picked and counted in absolute abundances. This includes Mollusca, Ostracoda, reworked microfossils, macrobotanical remains (seeds and fruits), and insect and bone fragments. Where possible, taxa were identified down to species level.
The data allow to develop a palaeoenvironmental reconstruction through the soil profiles, and can provide information on fluvial activity, landscape development and the general hydrological situation through time. It can in combination with other data corroborate the correlation of the three profiles and the interpretation of the depositional history in the Eger floodplain.
Productivity parameter, heavy metals, visible reflectance spectroscopy and diatom assemblages derived from lake sediment from Schweriner See, NE-Germany, were used to reconstruct eutrophication and contamination dynamics for the past 670 a cal BP on a sediment core. The timing of these changes corresponds to (unfiltered) sewage discharge into the lake basin and population dynamics within the catchment. Anthropogenic impact has been strong over the complete observed period with significant increases in eutrophication and contamination after the onset of the Industrialisation, which was dated to 1850+55/-80 within the catchment. Sewage quantity increased until 1988 and so did eutrophication dynamics. The well-dated record allowed to trace counter measurements, which can be divided in intended (e.g. building of a new sewage system) and coincidental measures (e.g. German Reunification in 1990). These contamination dynamics are in accordance with records from other archives from the southern Baltic Sea coast.
The vertical distribution of organisms in the sediment indicates that animals can be present as deep as 15 cm although at very low abundance at such depths (Fig. 4, Fig. 5 and Fig. 6). Oligochaetes and nematods are the only groups able to deeply penetrate into the sediment at significant densities (Fig. 4) in contrast to all other groups, which stay closer to the sediment surface. Maximal densities however seem to shift to the sediment surface with increasing bathymetric depth, as suggested in Fig. 5 and Fig. 6, so that all animal groups are more concentrated near the surface in the deepest parts of Lake Baikal. In such case, the depth of sediment mixing due to bioturbation appears to decrease with increasing bathymetric depth (Fig. 2b).