We report on pollen, plant macrofossils, and associated lithostratigraphy of a sediment core extracted from the base of Silver Lake, a kettle lake in northern Lower Michigan, USA, which reveal a complex deglacial scenario for ice block melting and lake formation, and subsequent plant colonization. Complementary multivariate statistical and squared chord distance analyses of the pollen data support these interpretations. The basal radiocarbon age from the core (17 540 cal years BP) is rejected as being anomalously old, based on biostratigraphic anomalies in the core and the date’s incongruity with respect to the accepted regional deglaciation chronology. We reason that this erroneous age estimate resulted from the redeposition of middle-Wisconsin-age fossils by the ice sheet, mixed with the remains of plants that existed as the kettle lake formed at ca. 10 940 cal years BP by ice block ablation. Thereafter, the kettle lake became a reliable repository of Holocene-age fossils, documenting a mature boreal forest that existed until 10 640 cal years BP, followed by a pine-dominated mixed forest, an early variant of the mixed conifer–hardwood forest that persists to the present day. Our study demonstrates that researchers investigating kettle lakes, a common depositional archive for plant fossils in deglaciated landscapes, should exercise caution in interpreting the basal (Late Pleistocene/early Holocene-age) part of lake sediment cores.
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Research Article|
June 05, 2019
Interpreting basal sediments and plant fossils in kettle lakes: insights from Silver Lake, Michigan, USA
Catherine H. Yansa;
a
Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.Corresponding author: Catherine H. Yansa (email: yansa@msu.edu).
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Albert E. Fulton, II;
Albert E. Fulton, II
a
Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.
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Randall J. Schaetzl;
Randall J. Schaetzl
a
Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.
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Jennifer M. Kettle;
Jennifer M. Kettle
b
Department of Geology and Geography, Jackson Community College, Jackson, MI 49201, USA.
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Alan F. Arbogast
Alan F. Arbogast
a
Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.
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Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences (2020) 57 (2): 292–305.
Article history
received:
30 Dec 2018
accepted:
21 May 2019
first online:
07 Feb 2020
Citation
Catherine H. Yansa, Albert E. Fulton, Randall J. Schaetzl, Jennifer M. Kettle, Alan F. Arbogast; Interpreting basal sediments and plant fossils in kettle lakes: insights from Silver Lake, Michigan, USA. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 2019;; 57 (2): 292–305. doi: https://doi.org/10.1139/cjes-2018-0338
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Index Terms/Descriptors
- absolute age
- assemblages
- C-14
- carbon
- Cenozoic
- Cheboygan County Michigan
- cores
- deglaciation
- Holocene
- isotopes
- lacustrine environment
- lake sediments
- lithostratigraphy
- lower Holocene
- Michigan
- Michigan Lower Peninsula
- microfossils
- miospores
- paleoenvironment
- palynomorphs
- Plantae
- Pleistocene
- pollen
- quantitative analysis
- Quaternary
- radioactive isotopes
- sediments
- Silver Lake
- statistical analysis
- United States
- upper Pleistocene
- vegetation
- Wolverine Michigan
Latitude & Longitude
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