From Saline to Freshwater: The Diversity of Western Lakes in Space and Time
CONTAINS OPEN ACCESS

Beginning with the nineteenth-century territorial surveys, the lakes and lacustrine deposits in what is now the western United States were recognized for their economic value to the expanding nation. In the latter half of the twentieth century, these systems have been acknowledged as outstanding examples of depositional systems serving as models for energy exploration and environmental analysis, many with global applications in the twenty-first century. The localities presented in this volume extend from exposures of the Eocene Green River Formation in Utah and Florissant Formation in Colorado, through the Pleistocene and Holocene lakes of the Great Basin to lakes along the California and Oregon coast. The chapters explore environmental variability, sedimentary processes, fire history, the impact of lakes on crustal flexure, and abrupt climate events in arid regions, often through the application of new tools and proxies.
A lignin, diatom, and pollen record spanning the Pleistocene–Holocene transition at Fallen Leaf Lake, Sierra Nevada, California, USA
*Corresponding author; present address: Chevron Energy Technology Company, 1500 Louisiana Street, Houston, Texas 77002, USA.
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Published:August 12, 2021
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CiteCitation
G. Ian Ball*, Paula J. Noble, Brandon M. Stephens, Anna Higgins, Scott A. Mensing, L.I. Aluwihare, 2021. "A lignin, diatom, and pollen record spanning the Pleistocene–Holocene transition at Fallen Leaf Lake, Sierra Nevada, California, USA", From Saline to Freshwater: The Diversity of Western Lakes in Space and Time, Scott W. Starratt, Michael R. Rosen
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ABSTRACT
Lignin phenol, pollen, and diatom analyses were performed on dated sediments (13,533–8993 cal yr B.P.) recovered from Fallen Leaf Lake, California. This multiproxy data set constrains the end of the Tioga glaciation in the Lake Tahoe Basin and reconstructs the response of the region’s aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems to climatic changes that accompanied the Younger Dryas, the end of the Pleistocene, and early Holocene warming. From the Pleistocene to the Holocene, lignin concentrations and syringyl/vanillyl (S/V) ratios increased, while cinnamyl/vanillyl (C/V) ratios and the lignin phenol vegetation index (LPVI) decreased, recording the proliferation of woody plant material and, particularly,...
- algae
- Angiospermae
- assemblages
- California
- Cenozoic
- Chlorophyta
- climate change
- cores
- diatoms
- glaciation
- Gymnospermae
- Holocene
- lake sediments
- lignin
- lower Holocene
- microfossils
- miospores
- organic compounds
- paleoclimatology
- paleoecology
- palynomorphs
- phytoplankton
- plankton
- Plantae
- Pleistocene
- pollen
- principal components analysis
- productivity
- Quaternary
- reconstruction
- Sierra Nevada
- Spermatophyta
- statistical analysis
- United States
- upper Pleistocene
- upper Weichselian
- Weichselian
- Younger Dryas
- Lake Tahoe Basin
- Tioga Glaciation
- Fallen Leaf Lake
- Aulacoseira
- Aulacoseira subarctica