15 k.y. paleoclimatic and glacial record from northern New Mexico

The southern Sangre de Cristo Mountains, New Mexico, contain evidence of glacial activity from the late Pleistocene to late Holocene. Sediment cores recovered from an alpine bog (3100 m) trapped behind a Pinedale age moraine, approximately 2 km downvalley from a high-elevation cirque, reached glacial-age debris and recovered approximately 6 m of lake clays overlain by gyttja. Accelerator mass spectrometry dating, sedimentology, variations in magnetic properties, and organic carbon data reveal six distinct periods of glacial and/or periglacial activity. These include a late Pleistocene Pinedale glacial termination just before 12 120 (super 14) C yr B.P., a Younger Dryas chron cirque glaciation, an early Neoglacial periglacial event (ca. 4900 (super 14) C yr B.P.), a late Holocene cirque glaciation (3700 (super 14) C yr B.P.), as well as late Holocene periglacial events at 2800 (super 14) C yr B.P. and the Little Ice Age (ca. 120 (super 14) C yr B.P.). Cold events in the middle to late Holocene correlate with subtle ice-rafting events in the North Atlantic and records of cold events in North America and Europe and were probably hemispheric in extent.