Laboratory work includes sedimentological, geochemical, oxygen isotope, and palynological analyses. Sediments in Jan Lake also show the same general pattern. Records older then this from central Alaska are rare because the dry lake basins were deflated and the sediment record lost. To date we have not identified any sites with records older than 15.3 ka B.P. in central Alaska. If Burial Lake remained filled throughout the late Pleistocene it suggests western Alaska was not as arid as the interior.
Work is in progress on a transect of cores from Burial Lake.
Results from Meli and Tangled Up lakes in the central Brooks Range indicate there have been both temperature and P-E balance shifts during the Holocene. High-resolution del18O analyses of authigenic carbonate from Tangled Up Lake show decadal to century scale temperature variability. Combined, these records reveal climatic changes throughout the region at a variety of temporal scales that create a foundation for future research investigating the timing, spatial extent, and magnitude of these events. Preliminary results from a transect of eight sediment cores from Jackfish Lake in the Yukon Territory document a complex Holocene lake level history.