Paleoenvironmental implications of lacustrine sedimentation patterns in the Temple Lake Valley, Wyoming

Thesis/Dissertation · Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1987

OSTI ID:5984709

Zielinski, G A

Lacustrine sediment cores were collected from three paternoster lakes in the Temple Lake valley, southern Wind River Range, Wyoming to model Holocene lacustrine sedimentation patterns and to evaluate controls on the sediment cascade system in this high-alpine valley. Coarse-grained sediments probably are deposited by turbidity flows and density underflows in Temple lake (3246 m) and by snow avalanching onto lake ice (dropstones.) in Miller Lake (3230 m). Such processes are minor in Rapid Lake (3134 m). Very poor sorting of fine-grained sediments suggests that fluvial and eolian components are recorded in sediment cores from each lake. Organic matter strongly influences chemical weathering in the Temple Lake valley. In addition, these 3 lakes are efficient sediment traps due to focusing of sediment to the deep upper end of each lake. Radiocarbon-dated sediment cores from lakes both inside and outside of the type Temple Lake moraine indicate that the deposit dates about 12,000 years B.P. Percentage organic detritus in these cores reach a maximum about 9500-8500 years B.P. and remain high from the early Holocene until 3300 years B.P., although slightly lower values occur 8500-7000 years B.P., probably not a period of major glacier activity. Similarly, valley-wall rock glaciers in lower Temple Lake valley probably were not active 5000 to 3000 years B.P. From 3300 years B.P. to almost the present, marked changes in most sediment parameters suggest an increase in physical weathering possibly associated with Neoglacial activity. Thus, the late-Pleistocene and Holocene glacial chronology of the Temple Lake valley includes a 12,000 years B.P. age for deposition of the type Temple lake moraine and a 3300 years B.P. age for the beginning of Neoglaciation.

• Research Organization: Massachusetts Univ., Amherst (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5984709
• Resource Relation: Other Information: Thesis (Ph. D.)
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES
GEOLOGIC DEPOSITS
GEOLOGIC HISTORY
WYOMING
AGE ESTIMATION
CARBON 14
DEPOSITION
GLACIERS
ISOTOPE DATING
LAKES
ORGANIC MATTER
QUATERNARY PERIOD
SEDIMENTATION
SEDIMENTS
VALLEYS
WEATHERING
BETA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BETA-MINUS DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
CARBON ISOTOPES
CENOZOIC ERA
EVEN-EVEN NUCLEI
FEDERAL REGION VIII
GEOLOGIC AGES
ISOTOPES
LIGHT NUCLEI
NORTH AMERICA
NUCLEI
RADIOISOTOPES
SURFACE WATERS
USA
YEARS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
580100* - Geology & Hydrology- (-1989)