Lago Rogaguado is a large (315 km²) shallow lake in the Llanos de Moxos, Bolivian Amazon. Two Holocene-age lake sediment cores (1.25 and 1.5 m long) were collected using a UWITEC gravity surface corer and Livingstone piston corer in 2012 and 2013. The location of core LR-400 is 2 km from the western shoreline at 2.5 m water depth, whereas core LR-398 is in the center of the lake approximately 4 km from the nearest shoreline at 2.9 m water depth. Both cores were dated using ¹⁴C, and produced a multi-proxy dataset (XRF, bulk density, grain size, C:N, biogenic silica, water content, and macroscopic charcoal) that we used to uncover palaeoenvironmental changes in the context of vegetation changes (deduced from pollen analyses of core LR-400; Brügger et al., 2016). The objective of the dataset was to reconstruct long-term paleoenvironmental conditions around the lake, including lake levels, erosion and sedimentation rates, and local biomass burning for the Holocene.

After fieldwork in Bolivia, the sediment cores underwent laboratory procedures in Bern, Switzerland. This included scanning procedures with the ITRAX scanner (XRF) at 2-mm resolution (Mo-tube, 10 seconds per measurement, 35kv and 35mA settings). Density was measured with the Geotek MSCL scanner (Gamma Ray Attenuation Porosity Evaluator). For each of the two cores, subsamples from one core half were used for ¹⁴C dates, grain size, water content, and C:N. Core LR-400 was analysed also for BSi and macroscopic charcoal.Radiocarbon dates included 10 dates from LR-400 and 2 dates from LR-398, and the cores were correlated based on their dates, visual comparison, and XRF measurements.Grain size was determined with a Malvern Mastersizer 2000 after removing all organic matter, at 1-cm resolution for all of core LR-400 and 66-122 cm depth of core LR-398. Carbon:nitrogen ratio was measured with a vario EL cube CNS analyzer at 1-cm resolution for all of core LR-400. C:N measurements were discontinuous for core LR-398, and included δ13C measurements via an Isoprime IRMS attachment to the vario EL cube CNS analyzer. Biogenic silica was determined for 36 samples using concentrations of silica and aluminum measured with ICP-OES. Water content was assessed at 1-cm resolution, and represents weight lost after drying the sediment. Finally, macroscopic charcoal was counted and measured under a stereo microscope from a volume of 2 cm³ of sediment at 1-cm intervals.