Evolution of the Bahamian coastal environment of San Salvador Island over the last 3,500 years based on Triangle Pond sediment cores

The multiproxy examination of ten soft sediment cores extracted from Triangle Pond was used in order to establish alterations in the northwestern coastal environment of San Salvador Island, The Bahamas over the last 3,500 years. Multiple paleolimnological techniques such as sediment identification through composition and color, grain-size analysis, Loss-on-Ignition, X-ray fluorescence and macrofossil identifications were used to identify eight separate depositional units. The different units represent alterations in the insular and surrounding environment of Triangle Pond through changes in coastal morphology, climate and sea level, anthropogenic activity and catastrophic events such as major storms and tsunamis.;Triangle Pond began as a tidal creek when sea level rose and inundated an interdunal swale approximately 3,500 yr B.P. The tidal creek became increasingly influenced by both fresh water input from increased storm activity and seawater input from rising sea level over the next 1,500 years. As sea level regressed to present day levels, the protected marine environment of the tidal creek became overrun by mangrove swamp. The mangrove swamp was destroyed in one depositional event which closed the tidal inlet and created the current hypersaline to brackish algal dominated lake. The sedimentary record of Triangle Pond indicates that the driving factors behind the evolution of the coastal environment of San Salvador Island were fluctuations in Holocene climate and sea level changes.