The area of a lake during a lowstand may be difficult to determine if evidence is currently submerged. Similarly, if the lake overflows during humid phase, there is little information on the amount of excess water. Because of the fragmentary nature of the evidence it may be difficult to ascertain the chronological relationships between deposits, vital for palaeoclimatic reconstruction. However, hiatuses in sectional evidence can usually be easily identified from erosional contacts. Lake sediment cores contain a number of biological, physical and geochemical indicators of lake depth, hydrochemistry and isotopic composition.
Cores can potentially yield proxy climatic data at annual resolution.
O indicate a humid climate and vice versa. It is difficult to obtain quantitative estimates of water depth from either proxy. In addition taphonomic processes can mix taxa from different habitats, complicating the reconstruction of lake chemistry. Marginal cores offer increased sensitivity to water depth variations, but are more prone to hiatuses than central cores. Hiatuses are more difficult to detect in cores than in sections.