ABSTRACT
Varves are one of the most important terrestrial archives of past environments with an annual- to century-scale resolution. Sediments from small and deep maar lakes have great potential in this respect due to their specific conditions for the formation and preservation of the laminated sediments. The coring operation was undertaken in the autumn of 2006. Prior to the coring, an echo sounding investigation was carried out to search the lake bed configuration for exploring the best coring point, which was finally determined nearly at the centre of the lake. Initial sedimentological description and soft X-ray photos for the whole cores were recorded. Sediment records with a total length of 36.9 m were recovered from Lake Ichi-no-Megata. The six lithozones were determined according to macroscopically discernible sediment characteristics like material, colour, sedimentary structure and physical property records. The continuous laminated sediments of Lake Ichi-no-Megata have great potential for studying past environmental changes since the last glacial period.
