Late holocene climate derived from vegetation history and plant cellulose stable isotope records from the Great Basin of western North America

Conference · Sat Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1994

OSTI ID:60988

Wigand, P E; Hemphill, M L; Patra, S M ^[1]

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1. Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV (United States)

Integration of pollen records, and fossil woodrat midden data recovered from multiple strata of fossil woodrat (Neotoma spp.) dens (middens) in both northern and southern Nevada reveal a detailed paleoclimatic proxy record for the Great Basin during the last 45,000 years in growing detail. Clear, late Holocene climate-linked elevational depressions of plant species` distributions have occurred throughout the Great Basin of up to 200 m below today`s and by as much as 1000 m below what they were during the middle Holocene. Horizontal plant range extentions during the Holocene reflecting the final northern most adjustments to Holocene climates range up to several hundred kilometers in the Great Basin. Well documented lags evidenced in the late Holocene response of vegetation communities to increased precipitation indicate reduced effectiveness in the ability of plant communities to assimilate excess precipitation. This resulted in significant runoff that was available for recharge. These responses, although indicating both rapid and dramatic fluctuations of climate for the Holocene, fall far short of the scale of such changes during the late Pleistocene. Extension of these results to Pleistocene woodrat den and pollen data evidence spans lasting several hundred to a thousand or more years during which significantly greater amounts of precipitation would have been available for runnoff or recharge.

• Research Organization: American Society of Civil Engineers, New York, NY (United States); American Nuclear Society, La Grange Park, IL (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: FC08-93NV11417
• OSTI ID: 60988
• Report Number(s): CONF-940553--Vol.4
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

05 NUCLEAR FUELS
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
56 BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE
APPLIED STUDIES
BIOLOGICAL INDICATORS
CARBON 14
CLIMATIC CHANGE
GREAT BASIN
HIGH-LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTES
ISOTOPE DATING
PALEOCLIMATOLOGY
PALYNOLOGY
PLANTS
POLLEN
POPULATION DYNAMICS
QUATERNARY PERIOD
RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL
SITE CHARACTERIZATION
YUCCA MOUNTAIN
Yucca Mountain Project