bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Absolute Ages of Quaternary Radiolarian Datum Levels in the Equatorial Pacific
Authors: Johnson David A. , Knoll Andrew H. 
Published: December 2004

AbstractRadiolarian assemblages were examined in two Quaternary cores (V24-58; RC11-209) from the tropical Padific Ocean. Eight radiolarian datum levels were identified in each core, and “absolute” ages were estimated for these levels by interpolation between paleomagnetic reversal boundaries previously established for the cores. The tropical radiolarian zonation for the Quaternary proposed by Nigrini (1971) appears to be most useful in terms of the reliability and ease of identification of the proposed zonal boundaries. Our estimated ages for the base of each of these zones are:Buccinosphaera invaginataZone (Zone 1): 210,000 yr BP;Collosphaera tuberosaZone (Zone 2): 370,000 yr BP;Amphirhopalum ypsilonZone (Zone 3): 940,000 yr BP;Anthocyrtidium angulareZone (Zone 4): 1,700,000 yr BP.A comparison of our age estimates with those of Quaternary radiolarian datum levels in cores from other regions suggests that significant diachroneity on a scale of up to several hundred thousand years may exist for some (and perhaps all) of these “events.” Diachroneity is most readily studied and documented in late Neogene cores where the absolute ages of the magnetic polarity reversals are known most precisely, but may also exist (though difficult to recolve) in earlier Cenozoic sediments. The existence of such diachroneity, if demonstrated through further studies, would have significant implications for our understanding of evolutionary patterns of planktonic communities in different biogeographic regions.
Dated wood from Alaska and the Yukon: Implications for Forest Refugia in Beringia
Authors: Hopkins D. M. , Smith P.A. , Matthews J.V. 
Published: December 2004

AbstractPostulations on the existence of forest refugia in parts of Beringia during the last glacial have been, in large part, based on ambiguous evidence. Existing data on radiocarbon-dated and identified fossil wood and macrofossils from Alaska and northwest Canada are synthesized here and are augmented by results of palynological studies in an effort to show the persistence of some, and total extinction of other, tree and large shrub species. Possible dispersal routes taken by species that reinvaded Beringia in postglacial times are also reconstructed from the fossil record. Macrofossil and pollen evidence, when combined with climatic factors, makes cottonwood a good candidate for survival during the last glacial. Larch and aspen are also candidates, though the evidence for them is less positive. Pollen and macrofossils of alder are very scarce in deposits of the last glacial age, and if it survived at all, it was probably in very isolated vegetatively reproducing clones. Shrub birch may have been present in Beringia, but tree birch probably was reintroduced during the Holocene. Spruce also appears to have been absent in Alaska from about 30,000 to 11,500 yr ago and probably reinvaded Beringia from a refugium south of the Laurentide ice sheet.
Dust, Clouds, Rain Types, and Climatic Variations in Tropical North Africa
Authors: Maley Jean 
Published: December 2004

AbstractDust and processes of raindrop formation in the clouds play a very important role in the climatic evolution of tropical north Africa. Sedimentologic, stratigraphic, pedologic, geomorphologic, and palynologic data converge to show that a major environmental change occurred in tropical Africa about 7000 yr B.P. In the Sudanian and Sudano–Guinean zones (wet tropical zone), from 15,000 to 7000 yr B.P., rivers deposited mostly clay, while from 7000 to 4000 yr B.P. they deposited mostly sand. During the first period, pedogenesis was vertisolic (montmorillonite dominant), associated with pollen belonging mostly to vegetation typical of hydromorphic soils, while during the second period pedogenesis was of ferruginous type (kaolinite dominant) with pollen belonging mostly to vegetation typical of well-drained soils. The great change near 7000 yr B.P. is linked chiefly to a major hydrological change that appears related to a change in the size of raindrops: from fine rains associated with considerable atmospheric dust (raindrop diameter essentially less than 2 mm) to the second period associated with thunderstorm rains (raindrop diameter mostly greater than 2 mm). The size of raindrops is related particularly to cloud thickness and dust concentration in the troposphere. Thunderstorm activity is influenced also by fluctuations of the atmospheric electricity, modulated by the sun.
Interpretation of Floodplain Pollen in Alluvial Sediments from an Arid Region
Authors: Solomon Allen M. , Blasing T. J. , Solomon J. A. 
Published: December 2004

AbstractPollen was collected from modern alluvium and from the atmosphere to document the nature and amount of paleoenvironmental information reflected by alluvial pollen chronologies. Results indicate that pollen in alluvium is a homogeneous mixture derived almost entirely from the floodplain itself. The few pollen grains derived from nonfloodplain plant communities and preserved in alluvial sediments are so well mixed that their frequencies no longer reflect the geographic distribution of the specific plant communities in which they originated. In contrast, the abundance of alluvial pollen grains, derived from the major floodplain taxa (Chenopodiineae, Ambrosia type), varies with summer and winter climate. This annual variation is preserved in alluvial pollen assemblages through a combination of processes within sedimentation basins involving discontinuous deposition events and mechanical pollen degradation. The high-frequency, wide-amplitude pollen variance in alluvial pollen assemblages contrasts with the low-frequency, narrow-amplitude pollen variance in sediments of lakes and ponds. The slight geographic variance in alluvial pollen assemblages, in contrast to the large variance in soil pollen, allows use of alluvial pollen to infer climate throughout the watershed in which pollen is sampled.
Late Pleistocene Paleo-Oceanography of the Norwegian-Greenland Sea: Benthic Foraminiferal Evidence
Authors: Streeter S. Stephen , Belanger Paul E. , Kellogg Thomas B. , Duplessy Jean Claude 
Published: December 2004

AbstractFluctuations in benthic foraminiferal faunas over the last 130,000 yr in four piston cores from the Norwegian Sea are correlated with the standard worldwide oxygen-isotope stratigraphy. One species,Cibicides wuellerstorfi, dominates in the Holocene section of each core, but alternates downcore withOridorsalis tener, a species dominant today only in the deepest part of the basin.O. teneris the most abundant species throughout the entire basin during periods of particularly cold climate when the Norwegian Sea presumably was ice covered year round and surface productivity lowered. Portions of isotope Stages 6, 3, and 2 are barren of benthic foraminifera; this is probably due to lowered benthic productivity, perhaps combined with dilution by ice-rafted sediment; there is no evidence that the Norwegian Sea became azoic. The Holocene and Substage 5e (the last interglacial) are similar faunally. This similarity, combined with other evidence, supports the presumption that the Norwegian Sea was a source of dense overflows into the North Atlantic during Substage 5e as it is today. Oxygen-isotope analyses of benthic foraminifera indicate that Norwegian Sea bottom waters warmer than they are today from Substage 5d to Stage 2, with the possible exception of Substage 5a. These data show that the glacial Norwegian Sea was not a sink for dense surface water, as it is now, and thus it was not a source of deep-water overflows. The benthic foraminiferal populations of the deep Norwegian Sea seem at least as responsive to near-surface conditions, such as sea-ice cover, as they are to fluctuations in the hydrography of the deep water. Benthic foraminiferal evidence from the Norwegian Sea is insufficient in itself to establish whether or not the basin was a source of overflows into the North Atlantic at any time between the Substage 5e/5d boundary at 115,000 yr B.P. and the Holocene.
Comparison of Foraminiferal, Coccolithophorid, and Radiolarian Paleotemperature Equations: Assemblage Coherency and Estimate Concordancy
Authors: Molfino Barbara , Kipp Nilva G. , Morley Joseph J. 
Published: December 2004

AbstractThe Imbrie-Kipp method of paleotemperature estimation is rigorously tested by comparing Atlantic temperature equations independently derived from the microfossils of three biotic groups: the Foraminifera, Coccolithophorida, and Radiolaria. This method consists of two steps: factor analysis of the modern sea-bed data of the individual groups which resolves discrete biogeographic assemblages and regression analysis of the modern assemblage data with observed sea-surface temperature data to obtain paleotemperature equations. Assemblage biogeography shows a simple subdivision into warm (low latitude) and cold (high latitude) for all biotic groups. Between biotic groups there is greater similarity among high-latitude assemblages than low-latitude ones. Correlating the assemblage data with observed sea-surface temperatures to produce temperature distribution patterns shows differences of less than 2°C in their optimum and critical temperatures. Regression analysis produced accurate temperature equations for each biotic group, all with standard errors of estimate of less than or equal to 2°C. Multiple correlation coefficients were all greater than 0.970. Applying these equations to two multiple biotic data sets (the modern and ice-age sea-bed data) and comparing their temperature estimates using the standard error pooled, shows over 87% concordancy for both data sets. Unlike the modern data, the discordancy among temperature estimates of the ice-age data shows a distinct geographic distribution; its cause is believed to be oceanographic, a difference in the water-mass structure between the modern and ice-age ocean.
Late Holocene Paleoecology of the Southern Plains
Authors: Hall Stephen A. 
Published: December 2004

AbstractAnalyses of pollen and land snails from rocksheter sites in the Osage Hills of northeastern Oklahoma indicate that the period 2000-1000 yr B.P. was moister than today. During that time, colonies of the prairie voleMicrotus ochrogasterwere present in the Texas Panhandle. About 1000 yr B.P. the climate changed to dry conditions that have persisted to the present. Disjunct colonies of small mammals in Texas became extinct at the beginning of the dry episode, thereby establishing the composition of the modern fauna. The climatic model for the origin of the Panhandle Aspect (A.D. 1200–1500) is questioned on the grounds that the Southern Plains experienced a long period of dry climate commencing A.D. 950.
Nine Centuries of Microparticle Deposition at the South Pole
Authors: Mosley-Thompson E. , Thompson L. G. 
Published: December 2004

AbstractThe analysis of microparticles in a 101-m core from Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, Antarctica has revealed a substantial increase in total particle concentration between approximately 1450 and 1850 A.D., a period encompassing the latest neoglacial interval or Little Ice Age. It is likely that this reflects a simultaneous increase in the concentration of particulate material in the Antarctic atmosphere. This is important climatologically, for the Antarctic atmosphere may represent the closest approximation to the natural background aerosol. Thus cores from East Antarctica may contain long and detailed records of the natural global background aerosol. Such records are unavailable from any other medium. Additionally, a cyclical variation which appears to be annual has been detected in the South Pole particle record. These features allow construction of a relative time scale for ice cores older than 100 yr from regions of low accumulation (<10 g a−1) where many traditional techniques are not applicable. This is especially significant, as the comparison of climatic data extracted from ice cores with other records of proxy data depends upon the ability to assign an accurate time scale to the ice core. An estimated nine-century record of net annual accumulation at the South Pole has been compiled and the calculated error in the time scale is ±90 yr.
Paleoecological Studies at Lake Patzcuaro on the West-Central Mexican Plateau and at Chalco in the Basin of Mexico
Authors: Watts W. A. , Bradbury J. Platt 
Published: December 2004

AbstractA 1520-cm sediment core from Lake Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico, is 44,000 yr old at the base. All parts of the core have abundant pollen ofPinus(pine),Alnus(alder), andQuercus(oak) with frequentAbies(fir). The interval dated from 44,000 to 11,000 yr ago has a homogeneous flora characterized by abundantJuniperus(juniper) pollen and frequentArtemisia(sagebrush). It is believed to represent an appreciably drier and colder climate than at present. The Holocene at Lake Patzcuaro is characterized by a moderate increase inPinuspollen and the loss ofJuniperuspollen, as the modern type of climate succeeded.Alnuswas abundant until about 5000 yr ago; its abrupt decrease with the first appearance of herbaceous weed pollen may reflect the cutting of lake-shore and stream-course alder communities for agricultural purposes, or it may simply reflect a drying tendency in the climate. Pollen ofZea(corn) appears at Lake Patzcuaro along with low peaks of chenopod and grass pollen at 3500 yr B.P. apparently recording a human population large enough to modify the natural environment, as well as the beginning of agriculture. A rich aquatic flora in this phase suggests eutrophication of the lake by slope erosion. In the most recent period corn is absent from the sediments, perhaps reflecting a change in agricultural practices. The environment changes at Lake Patzcuaro are similar to and correlate with those in the Cuenca de Mexico, where diatom stratigraphy from the Chalco basin indicates fluctuations in lake levels and lake chemistry in response to variations in available moisture. Before 10,000 yr ago climates there were cool and dry, and the Chalco basin was occupied by a shallow freshwater marsh that drained north to Lake Texcoco, where saline water accumulated by evaporation. Increases in effective moisture and possible melting of glaciers during the Holocene caused lake levels to rise throughout the Cuenca de Mexico, and Lake Texcoco flooded the Chalco basin with brackish water. After 5000 yr ago such flooding decreased, and shallow freshwater ponds and marshes were restored in the Chalco basin. This environmental change coincides with the appearance ofZeapollen and suggests cultural control of lake levels and salinity.
Estimates of Holocene Precipitation for Rajasthan, India, Based on Pollen and Lake-Level Data
Authors: Swain A. M. , Kutzbach J. E. , Hastenrath S. 
Published: December 2004

AbstractA pollen profile obtained from lake sediments at Lunkaransar, Rajasthan, in northwest India was used along with a pollen-climate calibration function to estimate past precipitation. Between 10,500 and 3500 yr B.P., the estimated precipitation was about 500 mm/yr, or about 200 mm/yr above the modern value. A model was used for the energy and hydrologic budget of a lake basin and lake at Sambhar (located 240 km SE of Lunkaransar) to calculate that a 200 mm/yr increase in rainfall above the modern amount would have raised the lake level about 20 m above the modern level. Topographic charts and satellite imagery provided some evidence in support of an enlarged paleolake of that elevation, but field exploration would be required to confirm the size and date of a former lake. After about 3500 yr B.P., the Lunkaransar profile indicated a desiccated lake bed; because no pollen was preserved, the pollen-climate calibration function was of no use for estimating the amount of the precipitation decline. A reduction of precipitation of about 200 mm/yr below the modern amount was estimated from the energy and hydrologic budget for paleolake Sambhar by assuming that the lake was one-tenth of its present size during the dry interval.
Old Crow Tephra: A New Late Pleistocene Stratigraphic Marker Across North-Central Alaska and Western Yukon Territory
Authors: Westgate John A. , Hamilton Thomas D. , Gorton Michael P. 
Published: December 2004

AbstractOld Crow tephra is the first extensive Pleistocene tephra unit to be documented in the northwestern part of North America. It has a calc-alkaline dacitic composition with abundant pyroxene, plagioclase, and Fe–Ti oxides, and minor hornblende, biotite, apatite, and zircon. Thin, clear, bubble-wall fragments are the dominant type of glass shard. This tephra can be recognized by its glass and phenocryst compositions, as determined by X-ray fluorescence, microprobe, and instrumental neutron activation techniques. It has an age between the limits of 60,000 and 120,000 yr, set by 14C and fission-track measurements, respectively.Old Crow tephra has been recognized in the Koyukuk Basin and Fairbanks region of Alaska, and in the Old Crow Lowlands of the northern Yukon Territory, some 600 km to the east-northeast. The source vent is unknown, but these occurrences, considered in relation to the distant locations of potential Quaternary volcanic sources, demonstrate the widespread distribution of this tephra and underscore its importance as a regional stratigraphic marker.
Pingos in Antarctica
Authors: Pickard John 
Published: December 2004

AbstractPingos, or ice-cored mounds, are described for the first time from Antarctica and for the first time on ice-cored moraine. Seven pingos up to 4 m high and 12 m in diameter occur on former dering of lakes on the moraine exposes water-saturated sediments to freezing and consequent lake sediments on Flanders Moraine, Vestfold Hills, Antarctica (68°40'S 78°00'E). Lateral wandering formation of closed-system pingos. The pingos are probably only a few hundred years old. The apparent absence of pingo scars in the Southern Hemisphere may be due to lack of suitable substrates, rather than to unsuitable climatic conditions.
Thermoluminescence Dating of Coarse-Grain Quartz from the Malan Loess at Zhaitang Section, China
Authors: Yanchou Lu , Mortlock A. J. , Price D. M. , Readhead M. L. 
Published: December 2004

AbstractThermoluminescence (TL) ages were obtained for five loess samples taken from the Zhaitang section near Beijing, China, using the coarse-grain quartz technique. The paleodose values have been determined by the method of total sample bleaching and regeneration of the TL growth curve. The method appears to be suitable for the age determination of loess samples up to about 150,000 yr where the annual dose-rate values are of the order 3–4 mGy/yr. This limit is a function of the total accumulated dose. The ages are in good agreement with those obtained by a fine-grain TL technique and are consistent with geological and geomagnetostratigraphic evidence.
Pollen Taphonomy in a Canyon Stream
Authors: Fall Patricia L. 
Published: December 2004

AbstractSurface soil samples from the forested Chuska Mountains to the arid steppe of the Chinle Valley, Northeastern Arizona, show close correlation between modern pollen rain and vegetation. In contrast, modern alluvium is dominated by Pinus pollen throughout the canyon; it reflects neither the surrounding floodplain nor plateau vegetation. Pollen in surface soils is deposited by wind; pollen grains in alluvium are deposited by a stream as sedimentary particles. Clay-size particles correlate significantly with Pinus, Quercus, and Populus pollen. These pollen types settle, as clay does, in slack water. Chenopodiaceae-Amaranthus, Artemisia, other Tubuliflorae, and indeterminate pollen types correlate with sand-size particles, and are deposited by more turbulent water. Fluctuating pollen frequencies in alluvial deposits are related to sedimentology and do not reflect the local or regional vegetation where the sediments were deposited. Alluvial pollen is unreliable for reconstruction of paleoenvironments.
Holocene Vegetation and Climate in the Puerto Blanco Mountains, Southwestern Arizona
Authors: Van Devender Thomas R. 
Published: December 2004

AbstractPlant macrofossils from 21 pack rat (Neotomasp.) middens at 535–605 m from the Puerto Blanco Mountains, southwestern Arizona, provide and excellent history of vegetation and climate for the last 14, 120 yr B.P. in the Sonoran Desert. A late Wisconsin juniper-Joshua tree woodland gave way to a transitional early Holocene desertscrub with sparseJuniperus californica(California juniper) by 10,540 yr B.P. Important Sonoran Desert plants includingCarnegiea gigantea(saguaro) andEncelia farinosa(brittle bush) were dominants. Riparian trees such asAcacia greggii(catclaw acacia),Prosopis velutina(velvet mesquite), andCerdicium floridum(blue palo verde) grew on dry, south-facing slopes in a middle Holocene Sonoran desertscrub in a warm, wet summer climate with frequent winter freezes. Modern subtropical Sonoran desertscrub formed about 4000 yr B.P. as summer rainfall and winter freezes declined.Cercidium microphyllum(foothills palo verde),Sapium biloculare(Mexican jumping bean),Olneya tesota(ironwood) andStenocereus thurberi(organ pipe cactus) became dominant as riparian trees retreated to wash habitats. The inferences of a latest Wisconsin/early Holocene summer monsoonal maximum by J. E. Kutzbach (1983), Modeling of Holocene climates.In“Late-Quaternary Environments of the United States,” Vol. 2, “The Holocene” (H. E. Wright, Ed.), pp. 271–277. Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis) are not supported for the Southwest. Apparently the persistence of late Wisconsin circulation patterns offset any increases in insolation.
Mire Development and Environmental Change, Barrington Tops, New South Wales, Australia
Authors: Dodson J.R. 
Published: December 2004

AbstractSediments began accumulating in nine mires on Barrington Tops, on the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales, before 11,000 yr B.P., and peat became common in the region by 8600 yr B.P. Sedimentation rates were low, but increased markedly about 3000 yr B.P. and again around 500 yr B.P. as a result of regional climatic change. A comparison of the results with other environmental data from the region suggests that conditions in the early Holocene were warmer and moister than at present, but that cooler and drier environments developed about 3000 yr B.P. In the last 500 yr a slight warming and either increased precipitation or cloudiness has become evident.
Status of Glacial Lake Columbia during the Last Floods from Glacial Lake Missoula
Authors: Atwater Brian F. 
Published: December 2004

AbstractThe last floods from glacial Lake Missoula, Montana, probably ran into glacial Lake Columbia, in northeastern Washington. In or near Lake Columbia's Sanpoil arm, Lake Missoula floods dating from late in the Fraser glaciation produced normally graded silt beds that become thinner upsection and which alternate with intervals of progressively fewer varves. The highest three interflood intervals each contain only one or two varves, and about 200–400 successive varves conformably overlie the highest flood bed. This sequence suggests that jökulhlaup frequency progressively increased until Lake Missoula ended, and that Lake Columbia outlasted Lake Missoula. The upper Grand Coulee, Lake Columbia's late Fraser-age outlet, contains a section of 13 graded beds, most of them sandy and separated by varves, that may correlate with the highest Missoula-flood beds of the Sanpoil River valley. The upper Grand Coulee also contains probable correlatives of many of the approximately 200–400 succeeding varves, as do nearby parts of the Columbia River valley. This collective evidence casts doubt on a prevailing hypothesis according to which one or more late Fraser-age floods from Lake Missoula descended the Columbia River valley with little or no interference from Lake Columbia's Okanogan-lobe dam.