This study evaluates a recently proposed model that links glacio-eustasy and orbitally forced climate change to explain cyclothemic facies successions of Late Mississippian age in the central Appalachian foreland basin. Specifically, we test the hypothesis that lowstand periods were marked by climate excursions from prevailing semiarid and seasonally wet conditions to transient humid conditions. Field characteristics of five different “lowstand” paleosols in West Virginia and Virginia show that they are either inconsistent or equivocal with respect to this global-scale climate model. We conclude that the proposed model is critically flawed and needs to be substantially revised, if not completely rejected.

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