DOI: 10.25921/ghsb-jv72
title: NOAA/WDS Paleoclimatology - Palynological and Carbon Isotope Data from Early Eocene Strata at Franklin Bluffs, Alaska (Sagavanirktok Formation)

description: Records of past vegetation and climate derived from pollen found in lake and ocean sediments. Parameter keywords describe what was measured in this data set.  Additional summary information can be found in the abstracts of papers listed in the data set citations.  Many data sets come from different collaborative databases, described on the Fossil and Surface Pollen Page (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pollen.html).

description: The samples were collected over three different field seasons, and the notes below explain their relation to each other. Data from sites FB1, FB2, FB3, and FB4 are presented in this data release.
Over the course of three different summer field seasons (in 2019, 2021, 2022), we measured and described the strata exposed at Franklin Bluffs (Fig. 1, Table 1). We measured a total of 15 different stratigraphic sections in three general areas, described below from south to north (oldest to youngest).  First, we measured 5 different sections in the coal-bearing strata at the southern end of the outcrop, which can be correlated to each other by walking out beds over hundreds of meters (Fig. 2A, B). This includes sections FB1, FB1A and FB1B (which are depicted as composites owing to their proximity and overlap, section “FB1AB”), and sections FB1C and FB1D (also depicted as a composite section “FB1CD”). In the field, sample heights were assigned for each section, but sample heights were also subsequently recalculated as composite sections were formed. Both sets of sample heights are reported in this data release.
Second, we measured eight different sections in the overlying (marine) strata exposed along the southern part of Franklin Bluffs. Of these eight sections, the lower three (sections, FB2, FB3, and FB4) can be correlated over tens to hundreds of meters by walking out beds, and they are depicted as a composite herein (called section “FB234”). About 1 km to north, the upper four sections (sections FB5, FB6B, FB6A, and FB6) were measured in a small canyon inset into the bluffs and they can also be correlated together by walking out beds (Fig. 3). Owing to a cutbank along a ~500-m reach of the Sagavanirktok River, it was typically not possible to walk out beds between the lower (FB234) and upper (FB5-6) groups, so instead, 
a correlation was made on an outcrop orthophotograph (Fig. 3) and further refined by the isotope stratigraphy presented later in this report. Due to low water levels in the Sagavanirktok River in 2021, we were able to access a section (FB5A) exposed along a part of the cutbank and this 
section helps to increase confidence in correlation of the lower and upper sections to each other. As with the FB1 sections, both field sample heights and sample heights recalculated for composite sections are reported in this data release.   
Site locations: Franklin Bluffs FB1A: 69.75845, -148.62452; Franklin Bluffs FB1B: 69.75827, -148.62458; Franklin Bluffs FB2: 69.75827, -148.62458; Franklin Bluffs FB3 69.76258, -148.63608; Franklin Bluffs FB4: 69.76857, -148.64088
    Provided Keywords: palynology, carbon isotopes