Late quaternary vegetation history of the eastern Highland Rim and adjacent Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee
Vegetation change during the past 25,000 years in and near the present Mixed Mesophytic Forest Region is inferred from pollen and plant macrofossil analyses of sediment cores from two sites on the eastern Highland Rim of Middle Tennessee, USA. Anderson Pond, in White County, dates from 25,000 radiocarbon years BP to present. Mingo Pond, Franklin County, Tennessee, contains a pollen record estimated to extend back to 14,000 y BP. Stratigraphic sites from the Missouri Ozarks to the Atlantic Coastal Plain date the full glacial in the southeastern United States between 23,000 and 16,500 y BP. During the glacial maximum, boreallike coniferous forests of spruce, jack pine, and fir extended southward to 34/sup 0/N latitude. Mesic deciduous forest persisted through the full glacial at 35/sup 0/N at Nonconnah Creek near Memphis. Fullglacial refuges for deciduous forest species may have also existed in south-facing gorges of the Cumberland Plateau and southern Appalachian Mountains in addition to bluffs along major streams in the southeastern United States. During the late glacial, beginning about 16,500 y BP, boreal-like coniferous forest was replaced in midlatitudes (34/sup 0/N) by cool-temperate coniferous-deciduous forest. In the early Holocene, between 12,500 and 8000 y BP, cool-temperate mixed mesophytic forest prevailed between 34/sup 0/N. The Mixed Mesophytic Forest Region assumed its present distribution in the mid-Holocene.
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Minnesota, Minneapolis
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-26
- OSTI ID:
- 5025697
- Journal Information:
- Ecol. Monogr.; (United States), Vol. 49:3
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
12,000-year record of forest history from Cahaba Pond, St. Clair County, Alabama
Simulation experiments with late quaternary carbon storage in mid-latitude forest communities