Documenting the Evolution of a Southern California Coastal Lagoon during the Late Holocene

Abstract

Coastal wetlands are declining globally, and although wetland restoration looks to offset these losses, its success relies on anticipating environmental response to external forces. The purpose of this study is to investigate the sedimentological record of Los Peñasquitos Lagoon to determine the processes that drive environmental transitions in a Southern California coastal wetland. For this project, we analyze three sediment cores from the wetland for grain size, total organic matter, and shell assemblages to reconstruct environmental change over the past ~4000 years. From the results, we find that the lagoon was initially an open embayment that persisted for >2000 years; however, at ~1000 cal yrs BP, a short-lived wet climatic period triggered a fluvial deltaic progradation at the head of the lagoon. As the wet period ended and drier conditions returned, the delta began to retreat, and the lagoon infilled as the estuarine mouth bar was permanently established. The permanent establishment of the mouth bar resulted in a transition to a marsh-dominated environment throughout the wetland. Ultimately, these environmental transitions were driven by climate variability, although evidence of human impacts was observed more recently in the record. Therefore, future restoration efforts must consider both natural climatic variability and anthropogenic influences if they intend to sustain coastal wetlands.