Subaquatic dust deposits

Sedimentary deposits of dust found on lake and ocean floors are here considered subaquatic dust deposits. In this chapter, a state-of-the-art overview is given of these subaquatic dust deposits and their value as archives of environmental change. Examples are given of subaquatic dust deposits that register over millions of years fluctuations in dust fluxes that can be interpreted in terms of past environmental changes in the source area(s) of the dust particles. The tools (theso-called proxies) that have been used to read these records of environmental changes are also presented and discussed. Subaquatic dust deposits are usually continuous through time, relatively easy to date; they reflect both wet and dry deposition of mineral dust particles and are not biased by the altitude at which the particles are deposited. This set of properties makes them a very valuable archive of dust as recorder of palaeo-environmental change. Finally, it is discussed in this chapter how the ocean potentially plays a role in the process of dust as a player of environmental change.