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The expanding occurrence of laminated surficial sediments in the Baltic proper has increased the possibilities to assess interannual variation in sediment accumulation over the past four decades. During thesame period of time, wind speeds and wind directions in the area have been recorded continuously on Gotska Sandon. When studying the finestructure in three distinctly laminated sediment cores, selected from 55 cores collected within a 39 km2 area, annual dry matter accumulation was found to correlate positively with the frequency of high wind speeds, reaching an optimum at gale force >/= 14 m s-1 . This confirms that resuspended sediments contribute significantly to the sediment accumulation, with a mean rate of 2 mm yr-1 for 25 surficially laminated cores collected at depths of 115-145 m. Decadal changes in both storm frequency and sediment deposition were observed, which may have implications not only for the turnover of sediments and associated nutrients and contaminants, but also for interpretations using sediment cores as historical archives. Horizontal comparison of dated sediment layers in all cores revealed a record of substantial changes in deep-water conditions. Recent recolonization of large areas by benthic fauna, within the depth of 102-125m, suggests that storm events in the early 1990s are responsible forsubstantially improved oxygen conditions. Although, bioturbation of laminated sediments, with a depth range of 0.5-5.5 cm in our samples,creates a false picture of an earlier improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]