From Saline to Freshwater: The Diversity of Western Lakes in Space and Time
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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.
Records of late Quaternary environmental change from high-elevation lakes in the Ruby Mountains and East Humboldt Range, Nevada
*Corresponding author: jmunroe@middlebury.edu.
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Published:August 12, 2021
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CiteCitation
Jeffrey S. Munroe*, Matthew F. Bigl, Annika E. Silverman, Benjamin J.C. Laabs, 2021. "Records of late Quaternary environmental change from high-elevation lakes in the Ruby Mountains and East Humboldt Range, Nevada", From Saline to Freshwater: The Diversity of Western Lakes in Space and Time, Scott W. Starratt, Michael R. Rosen
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ABSTRACT
Sedimentary records were analyzed from three lakes in the Ruby Mountains and East Humboldt Range of northeastern Nevada. Lakes are rare in the arid Great Basin, and these represent the highest-elevation lacustrine records from this region. The three cores cover overlapping time intervals: One, from a lake located just beyond a moraine, is interpreted to represent the Last Glacial Maximum, extending back to 26 cal ka; another extends to deglaciation ca. 14 cal ka; and the third extends to deposition of the Mazama ash, ca. 7.7 cal ka. Multiproxy analysis focused on measurements of bulk density, organic matter content, C:N ratio, biogenic silica abundance, and grain-size distribution. Depth-age models were developed using optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating, along with accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C dating of terrestrial macrofossils (wood and conifer needles), charcoal, and pollen concentrates (for deep sediment in one lake). Collectively, the three lakes record a series of discrete intervals spanning an unusually long stretch of time. These include the local Last Glacial Maximum (26.0–18.5 cal ka), local deglaciation (18.5–13.8 cal ka), the onset of biologic productivity (13.8–11.3 cal ka), early Holocene aridity (11.3–7.8 cal ka), deposition and reworking of the Mazama ash (7.8–5.5 cal ka), a neopluvial interval (5.5–3.8 cal ka), a variable late Holocene climate (3.8–0.25 cal ka), and a latest Holocene productivity spike (250 yr B.P. to the present) that may be anthropogenic. Data from all three lakes are presented, and the collective record of climate and environmental change for the Ruby Mountains and East Humboldt Range is compared with other paleorecords from the Great Basin.
- absolute age
- accelerator mass spectra
- C-14
- carbon
- Cenozoic
- charcoal
- climate change
- Coniferales
- cores
- dates
- deglaciation
- East Humboldt Range
- Elko County Nevada
- Gymnospermae
- Holocene
- isotopes
- lacustrine environment
- lake sediments
- last glacial maximum
- mass spectra
- Mazama Ash
- miospores
- moraines
- Nevada
- optically stimulated luminescence
- paleoclimatology
- paleoenvironment
- palynomorphs
- Plantae
- pollen
- productivity
- Quaternary
- radioactive isotopes
- Ruby Mountains
- spectra
- Spermatophyta
- United States
- upper Quaternary
- wood
- Angel Lake
- Soldier Lake
- Overland Lake