Sand-based storminess proxies from a coastal peatland Hill Top Bog, Outer Hebrides, Scotland

Storminess in northern Europe varies over annual and decadal timescales, however little is known about how storminess varies over centennial and millennial timescales. In this project two storminess reconstructions were developed from the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. Peat cores were sampled using a Russian corer from a peatbog Hill Top Bog (57°10'5''N; 7°20'52W). Samples of equal volume (5 cm3) from 1 cm contiguous intervals along the core were processed using the loss-on-ignition method (Heiri et al. 2001), leaving the ignition residue, which was sieved to establish the weight of the 120-180 and >180 micron sand fractions. The ignition residue and sand fractions reflect the past amount of sand deposition, which can be used as a proxies for storminess. Chronological constraints were provided by AMS radiocarbon dates; with 8 dates on the Hill Top Bog core. The reconstruction from Hill Top Bog spans the period 3940-0 cal yrs BP.